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AUTHOR: 


WHEELER,  OLIVE  A 


TITLE: 


BERGSON 
EDUCATION... 

PLACE: 

MANCHESTER 

DA  TE : 

1922 


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Manchester;'^  at  "The''" 


Wheeler,  Olive  A 

Bergson  &  education  by.  Olive  A,  V/heeler.  • .  »with  i 
a  foreword  by  J.L.  Paton 
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lectures* ««delivered  in  the  University; of  Manohes-i 

,  ter  during«.'«1919-20«*#.* 

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PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MANCHESTER 


EDUCATIONAL  SERIES,  No.  X 


BERGSON  AND   EDUCATION 


BERGSON  &  EDUCATION 


By 

OLIVE    A.   WHEELER,   D.Sc. 

Formerly  Fellow  of  the  University  of  Wales  ;  Lecturer 
in  Education  in  the  University  of  Manchester 


Published  by  the  University  of  Manchester  »t 

THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS  (H.  M.  McKechnie.  M.A.,  Secretary) 

12  Lime  Grove,  Oxford  Road,  MANCHESTER 

LONGMANS,  GREEN  &  CO. 

London  :  39  Paternoster  Row,  E.C.4 

New  York  :  55  Fifth  Avenue 

Bombay  :  Hornby  Road 

Calcutta  :  6  Old  Court  House  Street 

Madras  :  167  Mount  Road 


WITH   A  FOREWORD   BY 

J.  L.   PATON,   M.A. 

High  Master  of  the 
Manchester  Grammar  School 


1922 

Manchester        f       f       r        At  The    University   Press 
London,   New    York,   &c. :     Longmans,  Green   &  Co. 


PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MANCHESTER 

No.  CL 


4 


FOREWORD 

THE  educational  world  is  teeming  with  new  ex- 
periments. No  subject  method,  no  tradition  or 
department  of  it  is  so  firmly  established  by  tradition 
as  to  be  immune.  The  principle  which  actuates  our  ex- 
perimenters, if  there  be  one,  is  rather  dissatisfaction  with 
the  heretofore  than  any  clear  conception  of  the  whither  or 
the  way  that  leads  to  it.  It  has  been  rather  a  blind  groping 
than  a  clear-eyed  search. 

I  attended  some  of  the  lectures  contained  in  this  book. 
They  made  clear  and  articulate  to  me  what  had  hitherto 
been  vague.  I  began  to  see  the  central  increasing  purpose 
which  was  expressing  itself  through  our  upward  strivings. 
I  found  a  reason  for  the  dissatisfection,  and  also  for  the 
faith  that  was  in  me.  Many  shared  this  feeling  and  have 
pressed  for  the  lectures  to  be  published.  And  we  are  glad 
that  Dr.  Wheeler  has  found  time  to  prepare  them  for  the 
press,  so  that  others — not  only  teachers,  but  others  who 
care  about  the  progress  of  the  race — may  find  them  as 
stimulating  to  thought  and  helpful  in  practice  as  we  have 
done  ourselves. 

J.  L.  PATON 


'"^ 


{All  rights  reserved) 


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

THIS  book  is  an  expansion  of  a  course  of  public 
lectures  which  were  delivered  in  the  University 
of  Manchester  during  the  Session  1919-20,  and 
which  aimed  at  relating  the  various  principles  involved  in 
current  educational  experiments. 

It  is  obvious  that  throughout  I  am  deeply  indebted  to 
M.  Henri  Bergson,  whose  philosophy  provides  me  with  a 
means  of  relating  the  different  educational  movements, 
and  thus  of  appreciating  their  general  trend.  My  thanks 
are  also  due  to  Professor  Bompas  Smith,  who  read  the 
book  in  manuscript  and  made  many  valuable  suggestions  ; 
and  to  Miss  E.  J.  Sanders  and  Mr.  McKechnie  for  their 
aid  in  proof-correcting. 

OLIVE  A.  WHEELER 

The  University  of  Manchester 
April  1922. 


CONTENTS 


Foreword  by  J.  L.  Paton,  M.A. 
Acknowledgements 
\\      Introduction 

PART     I.     BERGSOn's     PHILOSOPHY 

Chap.     I.  Intuition :  A  New  Philosophic  Method 

II.  Duration 

III.  Consciousness 

IV.  Creative  Evolution 
V.  Man's  Place  in  Nature 

VI.   Bergsonianism,    the    Complement    of 
Modern  Science 


PAGE 
VII 

I 


9 

21 
26 

33 
42 

49 


il 


PART     II.      BERGSOn's     PHILOSOPHY 
AND     NEW     IDEALS     IN     EDUCATION 

Chap.  VII.  The  Revolt  Against  Intellectuah'sm 
VIII.  The  Development  of  the  Individual 
and  the  Problem  of  School  Govern- 
ment 
IX.  The  Growth  of  a  Philosophy  of  Life 
and  the  Problem  of  the  School  Curri- 
culum 
X.  New  Methods  in  Teaching.    Creation 
XI.  New    Methods    in    Teaching.      Co- 
operation 

XII.  New  Methods  in  Teaching.  Intuition 
Index 


59 

69 

82 
94 


106 

113 
129 


BERGSON    AND    EDUCATION 


I 


i 


INTRODUCTION 

IT  has  often  been  said  of  Professor  Henri  Bergson  that 
there  is  nothing  which  he  could  not  have  been  or  done 
had  he  chosen.  He  might  have  been  an  artist,  a  musi- 
cian or  a  novelist,  a  mathematician  or  a  scientist,  or  even 
a  p>oIitician,  and  in  whatever  direction  his  energies  had 
been  thrown,  he  would  have  stood  out  above  his  fellows. 
He  has  certainly  succeeded  in  an  almost  impossible  task — 
that  of  making  himself  one  of  the  most  talked-of  men  in 
Europe  after  having  thrown  in  his  lot  with  philosophers. 
If  one  is  a  politician,  the  chances  are  that  one  will  get  a 
few  turns  in  the  limelight  ;  and  the  scientist,  too,  may 
hope  to  get  an  occasional  column  in  a  newspaper,  provided 
that  his  discoveries  have  practical  bearings  ;  but  the  ut- 
most that  the  philosopher  can  expect  is  a  professorial  chair 
in  a  university,  and  a  quiet  study  in  which  to  think  his  own 
thoughts  and  find  in  them  what  satisfaction  he  may. 
Perhaps  after  his  death  the  general  public  will  learn  that  a 
controversy  had  at  one  time  raged  round  his  thought — 
a  controversy  none  the  less  real  because  the  opponents 
never  met  in  person.  But  while  he  is  with  them  he  is 
merely  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness,  a  voice  which 
they  do  not  hear.  Bergson,  however,  is  an  exception  to 
this  general  rule.  During  his  lifetime  he  has  been  lionized 
and  hero-worshipped.  "  Old-fashioned  professors,"  says 
William  James,  "  whom  his  ideas  quite  fail  to  satisfy, 
nevertheless  speak  of  his  talent  almost  with  bated  breath, 
while  the  youngsters  flock  to  him  as  to  a  master." 

It  is  not  only  the  philosophical  world  that  has  been 
stirred  into  activity  by  Bergson's  work.  The  general 
public  has  likewise  shown  a  deep  and  continued  interest 
in  the  development  of  his  thought.    When  he  came  to 

I  A 


f 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

London  in  191 1,  his  lectures  at  University  College  were 
fully  reported  in  The  Times.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  English  journalism,  the  interest  shown  in  philo- 
sophical discourses  was  such  as  to  justify  verbatim  re- 
ports. Both  in  London  and  Edinburgh  (which  he  visited 
later)  he  left  behind  him  groups  of  people  of  all  types 
s)rstematically  studying  his  philosophy.  His  tour  in 
America  and  Canada  in  191 3  was  something  of  the  nature 
of  a  triumphal  procession,  leaving  in  its  wake  disciples  in 
all  classes  of  society.  In  pre-war  days,  when  man  had 
time  for  disinterested  speculation,  he  was  the  most  hero- 
worshipped  man  in  France.  His  lectures  at  the  College  de 
France  were  crowded  with  people  of  all  nationalities, 
who  came  from  hv  and  near  to  gain  a  first-hand  acquaint- 
ance with  his  philosophy.  In  19 14  the  hall  in  which  he 
was  announced  to  lecture  at  five  o'clock  was  usually 
crowded  at  two  o'clock.  His  students  were  prepared  to  wait 
for  hours  in  a  close  atmosphere,  to  endure  considerable 
physical  discomfort,  and  to  attend  another  lecture  in  which 
they  had  no  interest,  in  order  that  they  might  be  sure  of 
hearing  him.  Some  who  foiled  to  gain  entrance  did  not 
hesitate  to  stand  in  the  pouring  rain  outside  the  windows  of 
the  hall,  in  the  hope  that  they  might  catch  some  words  that 
fell  from  his  lips.    He  was  in  very  truth  the  man  of  the  hour. 

What,  then,  is  the  secret  of  Bergson's  marvellous 
popularity  ?  It  is  certainly  not  to  be  explained  by  his  career, 
which  has  been  almost  commonplace.  He  was  born  in 
Paris  in  1 859.  His  father  was  a  Polish  Jew  and  his  mother 
of  Irish  extraction.  He  was  a  student  of  the  University 
of  Paris,  where  he  specialized  in  mathematics,  and  he 
spent  the  next  seventeen  years  of  his  life  teaching  in 
various  places.  At  the  age  of  thirty  he  gained  a  doctorate 
of  the  University  of  Paris  for  his  philosophical  thesis 
entitled  Essai  sur  les  Donnees  Immediates  de  la  Conscience.^ 

*  The  English  translation  is  entitled  Time  and  Free  Will. 


INTRODUCTION 

Since  1900  he  has  been  a  professor  at  the  College  de 
France,  and  in  19 14  he  received  the  honour  of  being 
elected  a  member  of  the  French  Academy.  In  comparing 
his  career  with  that  of  Rousseau,  Burns,  or  Shelley,  the 
first  thing  that  strikes  one  is  the  conspicuous  absence 
of  sudden  fluctuations  and  glorious  failures.  He  has  been 
eminently  successful,  even  in  the  routine  work  that  has 
fellen  to  his  lot.  The  change  from  mathematics  to 
philosophy  is,  perhaps,  the  one  unorthodox  development 
in  his  career.  It  certainly  dismayed  his  mathematical 
tutors  }  but  his  choice  was  justified,  not  only  by  the  pro- 
duction of  his  doctorate  thesis,  but  also  by  the  subsequent 
publication  of  his  other  great  works  :  Matiere  et  Mimoire  ^ 
and  V Evolution  Criatrice.'^ 

Is  the  secret  of  his  popularity,  then,  to  be  found  in  his 
personality  ?  It  is  true  that  as  a  lecturer  he  possesses  an 
X  incommunicable  charm.  He  has  the  magical  gift  of 
personality,  and  handles  an  audience  with  ease.  He  is  able 
to  unfold  a  train  of  thought,  no  matter  how  intricate  it 
may  be,  with  the  utmost  precision.  Indeed,  his  lucidity 
both  in  speech  and  writing  and  his  resources  in  the  way  of 
expression  are  simply  phenomenal.  His  picturesque  literary 
style,  his  poetry,  and  his  use  and  mastery  of  illustration 
and  metaphor  are  so  impressive,  that  it  is  easy  at  first  to 
under-estimate  the  originality  and  the  value  of  his  con- 
tribution to  philosophy.  He  is,  indeed,  a  poet-philosopher, 
as  was  Plato.  And  his  sincerity  is  contagious.  There  is 
not,  there  never  has  been,  a  more  single-hearted  seeker 
after  truth.  Philosophy  is  not  a  game  to  be  cleverly  played 
before  spectators  in  love  with  cleverness.  He  puts  the 
whole  of  himself,  all  that  he  is  and  has  been,  into  his  task 
of  interpretation. 

But  neither  his  lucidity,  his  literary  style,  nor  his 
^  English  translation.  Matter  and  Memory. 
•  English  translation.  Creative  Evolution. 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

sincerity  will  entirely  account  for  the  interest  shown  in 
Bergson's  thought.  His  philosophy  appeals,  because  it  is 
concerned  with  Life  and  not  with  thin  abstractions.  It 
asks  questions  which  are  vital  to  every  man,  be  he  philo- 
sopher, artist,  or  craftsman.  What  are  we  ?  What  are  we 
doing  here  ?  Whence  do  we  come,  and  whither  do  we 
go  ?  These  are  the  questions  which  he  boldly  asks  ;  and 
he  points  the  way  to  their  solution.  His  philosophy  is  not, 
and  it  does  not  claim  to  be,  a  closed  system.  It  is  rather  a 
method  of  seeking  truth,  which  results  in  a  direct,  though 
incomplete,  vision  of  the  nature  of  reality.  Professor 
William  James,  who  towards  the  end  of  his  life  relentlessly 
scrapped  his  own  philosophy  and  openly  declared  himself  a 
disciple  of  Bergson,  says  of  it,  that  compared  with  most 
modern  philosophical  literature,  which  seems  to  be  con- 
cerned with  the  turning  over  of  the  same  few  threadbare 
categories,  "  it  is  like  the  breath  of  the  morning  and  the 
song  of  birds.  It  tells  of  reality  itself,  instead  of  reiterating 
what  dusty-minded  professors  have  written  about  what 
other  previous  professors  have  thought." 

This  philosophy,  which  is  like  the  breath  of  the  morn- 
ing and  the  song  of  birds,  and  which  deals  with  life  itself, 
naturally  appeals  to  all  save  the  dusty-minded.  And  it 
stands  in  a  peculiar  and  intimate  relationship  to  the  pro- 
gressive educational  movements  of  this  age.  Of  course,  it 
does  not  originate  them  :  but  it  is  the  one  philosophy  that 
most  adequately  reflects  the  spirit  of  the  age  ;  and  since 
it  deals  with  human  personality,  with  life,  it  is  the  one 
philosophy  that  is  best  able  to  render  explicit  what  educa- 
tionists, who  are  also  concerned  with  the  living,  are  dimly 
groping  after. 

In  the  educational  world  to-day  there  are  widespread 
signs  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  old  order  of  things.  New 
views  of  human  personality  are  influencing  educational 
theory  ;  new  ideas  are  being  discussed  ;  and  consequently 


INTRODUCTION 

new  methods  of  teaching  and  new  forms  of  school  govern- 
ment are  being  tried  on  every  hand.  There  are  certainly 
signs  of  life  in  education,  but  there  is  also  temporary  con- 
fusion. Fortunately,  these  progressive  movements  have  a 
philosophy  ready  to  hand,  by  means  of  which  they  may  be 
related  and  unified.  And  it  is  the  definite  aim  of  this  book 
to  use  Bergson's  philosophy  in  order  to  render  explicit  the 
various  principles,  which  appear  to  underlie  these  move- 
ments. 

In  the  first  part  of  the  book  an  attempt  will  be  made 
to  lead  the  reader  to  the  centre  of  Bergson's  position.  The 
philosophy  will  not  be  examined  critically,  nor  in  great 
detail  ;  for  what  is  necessary  for  our  purpose  is  an  under- 
standing of  the  whole  view,  comparable  to  an  appreciation 
of  a  work  of  art.  In  the  second  section,  the  philosophical 
position  outlined  will  be  used  to  make  explicit,  and  to 
criticize,  the  principles  involved  in  recent  educational 
developments.  And  some  unsolved  educational  problems 
will  be  examined  in  the  light  of  these  principles,  with  the 
hope  that  the  direction  in  which  their  solution  is  to  be 
expected  will  be  indicated. 


PART  I:   BERGSON'S  PHILOSOPHT 


CHAPTER  I 

Intuition :  A  New  Philosophic  Method 


M 


ODERN   philosophers  have  to  fece  two  pro- 
foundly disquieting  considerations  :    first,  a  far- 
reaching  doubt  concerning  the  validity  of  know- 
ledge, and  secondly,  the  apparent  feilure  of  philosophy  in 
the  past  to  make  any  progress. 

One  has  only  to  pause  for  a  moment  to  realize  that  the 
nature  of  man's  sense  experience  depends  on  his  body, 
and  especially  on  his  sense  organs.  If  he  is  suffering  from 
jaundice,  he  sees  everything  yellow.  If  any  one  of  his 
sense  organs  does  not  function,  the  world  is  a  different 
place  to  him.  And  if  nature  had  only  given  him  different 
organs,  if  the  range  of  vibrations  for  which  he  is  adapted 
were  more  extended,  or  if  there  were  no  gaps  in  that  range, 
how  different  would  be  his  experience  !  His  perceptual 
knowledge  seems  to  be  entirely  relative  to  his  bodily 
endowments. 

Kant  has  gone  further,  and  has  tried  to  show  that  all 
our  knowledge  is  relative — relative  to  the  forms  of  thought 
supplied  by  our  own  minds.  We  can  never  know  things 
as  they  actually  are.  We  can  only  know  them  under  the 
categories  supplied  by  our  own  minds.  All  knowledge  is, 
as  it  were,  composed  of  matter  contributed  by  the  things- 
in-themselves  and  forms  contributed  by  the  human  mind. 
**  All  objects  of  an  experience  to  us  are  only  phenomena," 
says  Kant,  "  that  is,  mere  ideas  which,  as  represented,  have 
no  existence  in  themselves  outside  our  thought." 

If  Kant's  view  be  true,  does  it  mean  that  man  is  fore- 
doomed to  failure  in  his  speculations  concerning  the  mean- 
ing of  the  universe  ?  The  history  of  philosophy  in  the 
past  certainly  lends  force  to  this  suggestion,  for  it  is  a 
history  of  failures.  It  presents  a  striking  contrast  to  the 
history  of  modern  science,  where  progress  has  been  steady 
and  continuous,  each  worker  profiting  by  the  labours  of 

9 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

his  predecessors.  But  each  philosopher  has  to  go  back  to 
foundations,  and  there  are  almost  as  many  rival  systems  of 
philosophy  as  there  are  philosophers.  Is  this  impasse  due 
to  the  utter  inability  of  the  human  mind  to  find  truth  ? 
Is  Kant's  criticism  of  human  knowledge  final  ? 

Any  serious  thinker  to-day  has  to  take  account  of  these 
questions,  and  it  is  one  of  Bergson's  merits  that  he  feces 
them  with  incomparable  boldness.  He  replies  that  Kant's 
criticism  of  human  knowledge  must  be  regarded  as  final, 
unless  there  is  some  other  way  of  knowing  reality  than 
through  the  intellect.  He  points  out  that  Kant's  position 
rests  on  the  assumption  that  the  mind  is  incapable  of  any- 
thing but  **  Platonizing  "  :  that  is,  receiving  impressions 
in  pre-existing  moulds.  And  he  claims  that  there  is  another 
method  of  knowing  reality — the  method  of  intuition.  In- 
stead of  trying  to  grasp  reality  by  subsuming  it  under  con- 
cepts, by  taking  views  of  it  from  without,  as  the  intellect 
does,  it  is  possible  to  enter  into  it  by  intuition,  to  see  it 
from  within  as  it  really  is,  and  to  possess  it.  The  know- 
ledge of  the  intellect  depends  on  the  point  of  view  at  which 
we  are  placed,  and  on  the  symbols  by  which  we  express 
ourselves,  and  is  therefore  relative.  But  intuitive  know- 
ledge neither  depends  on  a  point  of  view  nor  relies  on 
ready-made  symbols,  and  in  those  cases  where  it  is  possible 
it  attains  the  absolute. 

Bergson  illustrates  these  two  kinds  of  knowing  by 
reference  to  the  motion  of  an  object  in  space.   He  says  : 

My  perception  of  the  motion  will  vary  with  the  point  of  view, 
moving  and  itationary,  from  which  I  observe  it.  My  expression 
of  it  will  vary  with  the  systems  of  axes,  or  the  points  of  reference, 
to  which  I  relate  it :  that  is,  with  the  symbols  by  which  I  trans- 
late it.  For  this  double  reason  I  call  such  motion  relative  :  in  the 
one  case,  as  In  the  other,  I  am  placed  outside  the  object  itself. 
But  when  I  speak  of  an  absolute  movement  I  am  attributing  to 
the  moving  object  an  interior  and,  so  to  speak,  states  of  mind  ; 

10 


A  NEW  PHILOSOPHIC  METHOD 

I  also  imply  that  I  am  in  sympathy  with  those  states,  and  that  I  in- 
sert myself  in  them  by  an  effort  of  imagination.  Then,  according 
as  the  object  is  moving  or  stationary,  according  as  it  adopts  one 
movement  or  another,  what  I  experience  will  vary.  And  what  I 
experience  will  depend  neither  on  the  point  of  view  I  may  take 
up  in  regard  to  the  object,  since  I  am  inside  the  object  itself,  nor 
on  the  symbols  by  which  I  may  translate  the  motion,  since  I  have 
rejected  all  translations  in  order  to  possess  the  original.  In  short, 
I  shall  no  longer  grasp  the  movement  from  without,  remaining 
where  I  am,  but  from  where  it  is,  from  within,  as  it  is  in  itself. 
I  shall  possess  an  absolute.^ 

The  power  of  intuition  which  Bergson  supposes  that  • 
man  possesses  is  neither  occult  nor  mysterious.  Everyone 
who  has  had  experience  of  literary  work  knows  that  after 
the  material  has  been  collected,  and  notes  and  sketches 
made,  it  is  necessary  to  make  an  eflFort,  perhaps  even  a 
painful  effort,  to  place  oneself  at  the  heart  of  the  subject. 
When  this  has  been  done,  and  one  is,  as  it  were,  within  the 
subject,  the  material  arranges  itself  as  one  goes  along. 
The  preliminary  analyses  and  note-takings  are  the  work 
of  the  intellect,  and  are,  of  course,  necessary,  but  the  find- 
ing of  the  movement,  of  the  heart  of  the  subject,  is  some- 
thing different  from  the  sum  of  the  preliminary  analyses. 
It  is  the  work  of  intuition. 

By  intuition,  then,  is  meant  Intellectual  sympathy  :  the 
process  of  knowing  an  object  by  becoming  it,  and  thus  co- 
inciding with  what  is  most  unique  in  it.  And  according  to 
Bergson  it  is  intuition  alone  that  will  conduct  us  to  the 
inside  of  life.  The  mistake  of  man  in  the  past  has  been  to 
sacrifice  intuition  to  intelligence,  so  that  at  present  intui- 
tion is  but  vague  and  discontinuous. 

It  is  a  lamp  nearly  extinguished,  which  only  burns  brightly  at 
long  intervals  and  for  scarcely  a  few  seconds  ...  On  our  person- 

1  English  translation,  An  Introduction  to  Metaphysics,  pp.  1-2. 

II 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

ality,  on  our  liberty,  on  the  place  which  we  occupy  in  Nature, 
on  our  origin,  and  perhaps  also  on  our  destiny,  it  throws  a  vacil- 
lating and  feeble  light,  but  one  which  none  the  less  pierces  the 
gloom  of  night  in  which  intelligence  leaves  us.^ 

But  surely  mystics  and  saints  and  poets  of  all  ages  have 
said  this.  They  have  realized  that  something  more  than 
intellectual  analysis  is  necessary  in  order  to  apprehend 
reality.  "  After  long  intercourse  with  the  thing  itself," 
says  Plato,  "and  after  it  has  been  lived  with,  suddenly, 
as  when  the  fire  leaps  up  and  the  light  kindles,  it  is  found 
in  the  soul  and  feeds  itself  there."*  They  have  experienced, 
and  consequently  been  able  to  describe,  the  process  of 
intuition  : 

|That  blessed  mood. 

In  which  the  burthen  of  the  mystery, 

In  which  the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 

Of  all  this  unintelligible  world. 

Is  Ughtened  : — that  serene  and  blessed  mood, 

In  which  the  affections  gently  lead  us  on — 

Until,  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame, 

And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood 

Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 

In  body,  and  become  a  living  soul : 

While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  power 

Of  harmony,  and  the  deep  power  of  joy, 

We  see  into  the  life  of  things.' 

Poets  have  realized,  too,  that  one  moment  of  intuition 
may  discount  many  intellectual  arguments.  Just  when  a 
human  mind  has  most  cogently  proved  that  the  world  is 
nothing  but  matter  and  force,  and  human  beings  are  no- 
thing but  marionettes,  there  may  come  a  sudden  intuitive 
realization  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  the  whole. 

*  V Evolution  Criatricey  p.  290. 

•  £/iV////,  vii,  341.     •  Wordsworth;   T intern  Abbey, 

12 


A  NEW  PHILOSOPHIC  METHOD 

Just  when  we  are  safest,  there's  a  sunset-touch, 
A  fancy  from  a  flower-bell,  some  one's  death, 
A  chorus-ending  from  Euripides — 
And  that's  enough  for  fifty  hopes  and  fears 
As  old  and  new  at  once  as  Nature's  self. 
To  rap  and  knock  and  enter  in  our  soul. 
Take  hands  and  dance  there,  a  fantastic  ring. 
Round  the  ancient  idol,  on  his  base  again — 
The  grand  Perhaps  I  ^ 
If  mystics  and  poets  have  previously  realized  the  im- 
portance of  intuition,  it  might  well  be  asked  wherein  lies 
the  special  value  of  Bergson's  contribution  to  the  subject. 
The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.   He,  and  he  alone,  has 
shown  just  why  and  where  the  intellect  fails,  and  what 
is  the  exact  province  of  intuition.    He  affirms  that  our 
intelligence  is  specially  adapted  for  ^c/id?«,  and,  consequently, 
is  not  disinterested.    In  order  to  live  we  have  to  act,  and 
our  first  need  is,  therefore,  for  a  simplification  of  reality 
to  enable  us  to  respond  quickly  and  appropriately  to  our 
environment.     And  our  intelligence  makes  this  sinipli- 
fication  by  attending  only  to  the  utilitarian  side  of  things. 
I  look  and  I  think  I  see  [says  Bergson],  I  listen  and  I  think  I 
hear,  I  examine  myself  and  I  think  I  am  reading  the  very  depths 
of  my  heart.  But  what  I  see  and  hear  of  the  outer  world  is  purely 
and  simply  a  selection  made  by  my  senses  to  serve  as  a  light  to  my 
conduct ;  what  I  know  of  myself  is  what  comes  to  the  surface, 
what  participates  in  my  actions.  My  senses  and  my  consciousness, 
therefore,  give  me  no  more  than  a  practical  simplification  of 
reality.  In  the  vision  they  furnish  me  of  myself  and  of  things,  the 
differences  that  are  useless  to  man  are  obliterated,  the  resemblances 
that  are  useful  to  him  are  emphasized  ;  ways  are  traced  out  for 
me  in  advance  along  which  my  activity  is  to  travel.  These 
ways  are  the  ways  which  all  mankind  has  trod  before  me. 

1  Browning  :  Biihop  Blougram's  Apology. 

13 


Ill 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

Things  have  been  classified  with  a  view  to  the  use  I  can  derive 
from  them.^ 

In  order  to  reach  the  necessary  artificial  simplification, 
the  intelligence,  then,  ignores  the  rich  individuahty  of 
things,  and  attends,  so  to  speak,  only  to  their  labels.  How 
many  of  us  can  distinguish  one  sheep  from  another  ?  All 
that  we  know  is  that  they  are  sheep.  In  other  words,  we 
confine  ourselves  to  reading  the  labels  affixed  to  them,  and 
fail  to  perceive  those  characteristics  which  differentiate  the 
sheep  from  one  another  and  which  are  easily  discernible 
to  the  shepherd.  We  do  not  perceive  the  distinguishing 
marks,  because  to  do  so  would  be  of  no  use  to  us  in  our 
actions  :  and  it  is  the  same  pressure  of  utility  that  forces 
the  shepherd  to  attend  to  them,  for  they  are  of  use  to  him, 
although  not  to  us.  The  reason,  then,  why  our  intelligence 
fails  to  take  a  disinterested  view  of  the  nature  of  reality  is 
because  it  is  cast  in  the  mould  of  action. 

Bergson,  however,  does  not  leave  us  here.  He  not  only 
shows  why,  but  also  where,  the  intellect  fails.  It  fails 
whenever  it  attempts  to  deal  with  change  or  becoming. 
One  of  its  devices  for  purposes  of  action  is  to  treat  what  is 
really  moving  by  fixing  it,  and  consequently  it  is  charac- 
terized by  a  natural  incomprehension  of  change  in  all  its 
forms.  The  classical  paradoxes  of  motion  associated  with 
the  name  of  Zeno  are  but  examples  of  this  failure  to  deal 
with  one  form  of  change,  and  their  detailed  consideration 
may  therefore  help  us  to  see  the  full  force  of  Bergson's 
criticism  of  the  intellect. 

The  simplest  of  these  paradoxes  is  that  of  the  arrow  in 
flight  Zeno  argues  that  at  any  single  instant  of  time  the 
arrow  in  flight  occupies  a  certain  position,  and  is  therefore 
at  rest  at  a  given  point.  Obviously,  it  would  take  at  least 
two  instants  for  it  to  occupy  two  successive  positions. 

1  Laughter:  An  Essay  on  the  Meaning  of  the  Comic.  English 
translation,  191 3,  pp.  15 1-2. 

H 


A  NEW  PHILOSOPHIC  METHOD 

Therefore  at  any  single  instant  of  time  it  is  at  rest  And 
this  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  at  every  instant,  at  every 
point  in  its  passage,  it  is  at  rest  Therefore  motion  is  im- 
possible. 

"  How  absurd  !  "  says  the  archer.  "  Did  not  the  arrow 
leave  my  bow  a  moment  since,  and  is  it  not  now  transfixed 
in  the  mark  at  which  I  aimed  ?  Motion  impossible,  in- 
deed !  I  know  from  experience  that  the  arrow  moves." 
The  full  force  of  the  paradox  is  to  be  seen  just  here. 
Direct  experience  affirms  that  the  arrow  moves,  but  the  • 
arguments  of  the  intellect  prove  that  it  cannot  move.  • 
The  truth  is  that  the  intelligence  fails  to  comprehend 
motion.  It  takes  outside  views  of  it,  and,  judged  from  the  . 
outside,  motion  is  only  "  the  occupancy  of  serially  suc- 
cessive points  of  space  at  serially  successive  instants  of 
time."  But  judged  from  the  inside,  that  is,  by  intuition, 
whatever  else  it  is,  it  is  not  this,  for  it  is  not  static.  Our 
intelligence  only  serves  to  give  us  juxtaposed  views  or 
snapshots  of  the  moving.  Of  the  transition  itself  it  tells 
us  nothing.  How  the  arrow  gets  from  one  position  to 
another  is  of  no  interest  to  it  Of  course  the  arrow  gets 
there  by  moving,  but  the  positions — which  are  all  that 
can  be  seen  from  the  outside — however  numerously  multi- 
plied, contain  no  element  of  movement ;  and  so  Zeno, 
using  nothing  but  these  in  his  argument,  has  no  alternative 
but  to  say  that  the  intellect  repudiates  motion  as  a  non- 
reality.  Things  certainly  appear  to  move,  but  they  cannot 
really  do  so,  for  there  is  no  flaw  in  the  logical  argument 
But  to  Bergson  motion  is  the  reality — the  reality  which 
the  intellect  lets  slip  through  its  grasp,  and  which  can  be 
apprehended  only  by  intuition.  Instal  yourself  in  the 
change,  in  the  movement,  and  you  will  have  delivered  into  • 
your  hand  the  successive  positions ;  but  from  these  positions, 
perceived  from  without  as  immobilities,  you  will  never  re- 
constitute the  movement 

15 


M^ 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

The  same  difficulty  frequently  appears  in  another  form. 
Suppose  that  there  are  two  points,  A  and  B,  separated 
from  one  another  in  space  (Fig.  i).  It  is  easy  to  show  by 
intellectualist  logic  that  it  is  impossible  to  move  from 
A  to  B. 


1 


1 


J 


A        E         D  C  B 

Fig.  I 

For  in  order  to  move  from  A  to  B,  it  is  first  necessary 
to  move  through  half  that  distance,  that  is,  from  A  to  C  ; 
and  in  order  to  move  from  A  to  C  it  is  first  necessary  to 
move  through  a  quarter  of  the  distance,  that  is,  from 
A  to  D  ;  and  in  order  to  move  from  A  to  D  it  is  first 
necessary  to  move  through  one-eighth  of  the  distance, 
that  is,  from  A  to  E.  And  since  A  B  is  infinitely 
divisible,  there  is  always  some  other  subdivision,  that  must 
first  be  traversed,  and  consequently  the  movement  from 
A  to  B  can  never  be  completed.  In  short,  it  is  im- 
possible to  move  from  A  to  B. 

"  How  absurd  !  "  says  the  man  in  the  street,  and  he 
thinks  he  has  disposed  of  the  paradox  by  giving  a  practical 
proof  of  its  absurdity,  by  doing  what  Zeno  declared  to  be 
impossible.  But  in  reality  the  paradox  goes  deeper.  There 
is  no  flaw  in  the  logical  argument.  Why,  then,  is  there  this 
contradiction  between  experience  and  logic  ?  According 
to  Bergson,  the  paradox  arises  from  the  insufficiency  of  the 
intellect  to  deal  with  movement.  Grasped  by  intuition  the 
movement  from  A  to  B  is  indivisible,  like  the  tension  of 
an  arc  The  device  of  Zeno  is  to  treat  the  movement 
like  the  line  A  B,  that  is,  as  static  ;  but  everyone  knows 
from  direct  experience  that  to  treat  a  movement  which 
was  begun,  continued,  and  ended  without  a  break,  as 
infinitely  divisible,  is  to  distort  it    If  the  movement  is 

i6 


A  NEW  PHILOSOPHIC  METHOD 

divided  it  is  no  longer  the  same  thing.  It  is  two  move- 
ments with  a  rest  in  between.  From  the  outside  there  is 
no  difference,  the  path  traced  is  the  same  ;  but  from  the 
inside  there  is  a  world  of  diflFerence.  To  grasp  a  movement 
as  it  really  is,  then,  we  must  not  analyze  it  by  the  intellect, 
but  rather  place  ourselves  within  it  by  intuition. 

The  difficulty  that  arises  from  treating  movement  as  a 
series  of  immobilities  takes  its  most  acute  form  in  the 
paradox  of  Achilles  and  the  tortoise,  in  which  Zeno  argues 
that  if  the  tortoise  has  ever  so  small  a  start  the  swift 
runner  Achilles  can  never  overtake  him.  For  the  sake  of 
clearness  suppose  that  the  accompanying  diagram  (Fig.  2) 


Ai 


I 


M 


^ 


50  y**At 

...      ^,  Scale :  20  ydt.  to  i  inch 

A  s  handicap  -  50  yards.    A's  speed  :  T' 


speed  :  T's  speed  : :  5  :  1 


Fig.   2 

represents  the  race-course,  the  relative  speeds  of  Achilles 
and  the  tortoise  being  as  five  to  one,  and  the  handicap  of 
the  former  being  fifty  yards.  Let  A  and  T  represent  the 
initial  positions  of  Achilles  and  the  tortoise  respectively. 
Now,  let  Achilles  run  the  fifty  yards  to  the  position  A2. 
During  the  time  which  he  takes  to  do  this,  the  tortoise 
will  have  run  one-fifth  of  that  distance  (ten  yards),  to  the 
position  T2.  Let  Achilles  now  run  the  ten  yards  to  the 
position  A3,  and  the  tortoise  will  run  two  yards,  that  is, 
to  T3.  Let  Achilles  do  this,  and  the  tortoise  will  have " 
time  to  run  two-fifths  of  a  yard.  And  however  long  this 
goes  on  the  same  principle  will  apply — that  the  time  taken 
by  Achilles  to  reach  the  last  starting-point  of  the  tortoise 
will  be  sufficient  to  allow  the  tortoise  to  make  some  ad- 
vance, and  thus  to  maintain  his  lead.  This  can  go  on  ad 
infinitum,  the  interval  between  the  pursuer  and  the  pursued 

»7  B 


\ 


Hi 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

ever  growing  smaller,  but  never  becoming  wholly  obliter- 
ated. Therefore  Achilles  can  never  overtake  the  tortoise. 

What  an  absurd  conclusion  !  The  whole  of  experience 
from  the  time  of  Zeno  until  the  last  Derby  race  goes  to 
show  that  Achilles  can  overtake  the  tortoise,  the  swift 
runner  the  slow.  And  yet  there  is  no  fallacy  in  the  logical 
argument.   How,  then,  can  we  account  for  the  contradic- 
tion between  experience  and  logic  ?  Like  the  other  argu- 
ments, this  also  depends  on  the  supposition  that  what  is  true 
of  the  line  along  which  movement  passes  is  true  of  the  niove- 
ment.  The  line  lends  itself  to  any  mode  of  decomposition, 
because  it  has  no  internal  organization.    On  that  very 
score  it  can  be  adequately  dealt  with  by  the  intellect.   But 
all  movement  is  articulated  internally,  and  must  therefore 
be  dealt  with   by  the  method  of  intuition.    Consider 
Achilles.   Put  yourself  in  his  place,  and  what  do  you  find  ? 
You  find  that  each  of  his  steps  must  be  treated  as  an  in- 
divisible.   He  either  takes  a  whole  step  or  nothing.    He 
never  takes  a  minute  fraction  of  a  step.  Put  yourself  in  the 
place  of  the  tortoise,  and  you  find  the  same.   Both  move- 
ments have  natural  articulations  which  must  be  respected. 
The  artifice  of  Zeno  was  to  recompose  the  movement  of 
Achilles  according  to  an  arbitrarily  chosen  law.    Let  him 
firet  do  fifty  yards,  then  ten  yards,  two  yards,  two-fifths  of 
a  yard,  and  so  on.  Judged  from  the  outside  there  may  be 
no  objection  to  this  :  but  judged  from  within  any  one  of 
these  distances,  or  all  of  them,  may  be  found  to  cut  across 
the  natural  articulations  of  the  movement,  thus  dividing 
where  division  is  unjustifiable. 

In  general,  Bergson  concludes  that  these  contradictions 
which  Zeno  outlines  arise  because  intellectualist  logic  is 
insufficient  to  deal  with  motion.  The  intellect  will  do 
»  for  matter,  for  the  static,  but  it  will  not  do  for  any  forai  of 
change  or  becoming.  That  must  be  grasped  by  intuition. 
The  province  of  intuition  is  therefore  obvious.  Whatever 

i8 


A  NEW  PHILOSOPHIC  METHOD 

exists,  the  essence  of  which  is  change  or  becoming,  must  be 
grasped  intuitively  if  it  is  to  be  grasped  as  it  actually  is. 
The  snapshots  which  the  intellect  takes  of  a  changing  • 
reality  are,  of  course,  a  necessary  preparation  for  the  act 
or  acts  of  intuition,  but  they  alone  always  let  slip  the 
movement  itself. 

Ordinarily  we  regard  rest  as  simpler  than  motion, 
and  we  try,  like  Zeno,  to  derive  the  latter  from  the  former, 
but  without  success.  Bergson  escapes  the  difficulty  by 
beginning  at  the  other  end.  Movement  is  the  simple,  . 
original  thing-in-itself,  apprehended  by  intuition,  whereas  ' 
rest  is  secondary  and  derived.  Two  passengers  in  trains 
moving  side  by  side  in  the  same  direction  at  the  same  rate 
will  appear  to  one  another  to  be  at  rest.  Immobility,  then, 
is  composed  of  two  equal  simultaneous  movements.  Thus, 
if  we  start  with  motion,  rest  finds  a  place  in  our  scheme 
of  things  ;  but  if  we  start  with  immobility,  as  did  Zeno, 
we  have  to  deny  the  existence  of  motion,  in  direct  contra- 
diction to  the  whole  of  experience. 

Change,  then,  is  the  reality,  the  thing-in-itself,  and  can  • 
only  be  grasped  by  intuition.  And  all  the  biggest  things  in 
existence — human  personality,  life,  spirit — ^are  forms  of 
change.  Bergson's  whole  philosophy  is  an  attempt  to  dis- 
cover the  nature  of  these  realities  by  the  method  of  intui- 
tion. It  is  not  so  much  a  system  of  thought  as  a  new 
method  of  seeking  truth.  Consequently  it  requires  for 
its  appreciation  a  kind  of  intellectual  conversion.  On  this 
account  it  is,  perhaps,  the  high  priests  of  the  old  order  who 
have  the  greatest  difficulty  in  understanding  this  new 
philosopher    As  a  French  disciple  of  his  expresses  it : 

Bergson  claims  of  us  first  of  all  a  certain  inner  catastrophe,  and 
not  everyone  is  capable  of  such  a  logical  revolution.  But  those 
who  have  once  found  themselves  flexible  enough  for  the  execu- 
tion of  such  a  psychological  change  of  front  discover  somehow 

19 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

that  they  can  never  return  to  their  ancient  attitude  of  mind. 
They  are  now  Bergsonians — and  possess  the  principal  thoughts 
of  the  master  all  at  once. 

We  have  to  begin  by  putting  off  our  proud  maturity  of 
intellect  and  becoming  again  as  little  children  in  the  eyes 
of  reason.  "  Philosophy  is  so  simple,"  says  this,  the 
subtlest  of  all  living  philosophers, "  and  you  are  so  learned." 
If  you  would  know  the  biggest  things  in  existence- 
human  personality,  life,  spirit,  even  God  himself— you 
must  grasp  them  by  a  living  understanding,  and  not 
through  the  intellect,  which  works  by  conceptual  logic. 
It  is  intuitive  sympathy  alone  which  will  put  you,  in  a 
flash,  at  the  heart  of  reality. 


I 


20 


CHAPTER   II 

Duration 

FROM  the  study  of  Zeno's  paradoxes  it  has  be- 
come apparent  that  the  intellect,  which  works  by 
analysis,  is  incapable  of  comprehending  motion. 
Its  function  seems  to  be  to  take  snapshots  of  the  moving  for 
purposes  of  action,  thus  reducing  it  to  a  series  of  im- 
mobilities.  And  the  function  of  intuition  is  to  grasp  the 
real — namely,  change.  A  cinematograph  film  is  prepared 
by  taking  snapshots  of  a  moving  scene  at  small  intervals 
of  time.  But  no  matter  how  many  views  are  juxtaposed 
in  space,  or  how  snuU  the  intervals  of  time  between 
them,  the  static  snapshots  bear  little  resemblance  to  the 
changing  reality.  The  inventor  of  the  cinematograph 
realized  that  in  order  to  arrive  at  even  a  moderately  ade- 
quate representation  of  the  moving  scene  it  is  necessary 
to  reintroduce  the  movement.  So  it  is  with  human  thought. 
The  snapshots  of  the  intellect,  however  frequent  they  may 
be  and  however  useful  for  practical  purposes,  can  never 
reveal  the  nature  of  anything  the  essence  of  which  is  to 
change.  It  is  by  intuition  alone  that  the  movement  can  be 
reintroduced,  and  the  real — which  is  ever  changing — be 
apprehended  as  it  is  in  itself. 

That  which  changes  exists  in  time,  and  to  spread  it  out 
in  space,  as  the  intellect  does,  is  to  distort  it.  To  grasp  it  as 
it  is,  one  must  seize  it  in  its  flowing  through  time.  Berg- 
son's  intuition  thus  differs  from  that  of  most  thinkers. 
If,  as  is  usually  supposed,  the  real  is  the  changeless  and 
the  eternal,  then  in  order  to  apprehend  things-in-them- 
selves  it  is  necessary  to  get  outside  time  and  to  see  them 
sub  specie  atemitatis.  There  is  thus  imposed  on  the  finite 
philosopher  a  seemingly  impossible  task.  But  Bergson 
holds  that  in  order  to  grasp  the  real  as  it  is,  one  must  seize 
it  in  its  flowing  through  time,  that  is,  sub  specie  durationis. 
No  one  who  has  heard  this  French  philosopher  lecture  is 

21 


I 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

ever  likely  to  forget  the  sound  of  his  voice,  the  crisp  in- 
tensity of  articulation,  when  again  and  again  he  insisted 
upon  the  necessity  for  self-instalment  in  change  or  be- 
coming. "  You  must  get  v^rithln  this  mobility."  "You 
must  place  yourself  at  a  bound  in  true  duration."  It  is  the 
reiterated  pleading  of  a  great  conviction.  To  grasp  a 
changing  reality  one  must  follow  it  in  all  its  history  by  a 
living  understanding.  This  is  a  difficult,  but  by  no  means 
an  impossible,  task.  Bergsonian  intuition,  then,  might  be 
described  as  the  grasping  of  changing  realities  sub  specie 

durationis. 

Time,  then,  occupies  a  unique  place  in  Bergson's 
thought  ;  and  before  we  can  proceed  to  apply  the  method 
of  intuition  to  the  solution  of  any  further  problems  it  will 
be  necessary  to  consider  one  of  the  most  difficult  questions 
in  the  whole  range  of  philosophy,  namely,  the  nature  of 
time.   It  was  the  great  mystery  to  Carlyle  : 

The  illimitable,  silent,  never-resting  thing  called  time  :  rolling, 
rushing  on,  swift,  silent,  like  an  all-embracing  ocean  tide,  on 
which  we  and  all  the  universe  swim  like  exhalations — like  appari- 
tions which  arey  and  then  are  not ;  this  is  for  ever  very  literally  a 
miracle  :  a  thing  to  strike  us  dumb — for  we  have  no  word  to 
speak  about  it. 

There  is  a  suggestion  in  this  paragraph  that  time  is  a 
thing  which  the  intellect  cannot  grasp,  but  which  is, 
nevertheless,  something  fundamental — a  position  most 
skilfully  developed  by  Bergson  in  his  doctorate  thesis. 
Time  and  Free  IFill.  According  to  the  intellectualist, 
time  is  a  homogeneous  medium  in  which  changes  take 
place.  A  man  develops  from  babyhood  to  childhood,  to 
boyhood,  and  to  maturity  in  an  empty  medium — time — 
which  can  be  divided  and  sub-divided  indefinitely,  since 
it  has  no  quality.  We  can  say  of  him  that  he  is  forty  years, 
or  five  hundred  and  twenty  lunar  months,  or  two  thousand 

22 


) 


DURATION 

and  eighty  weeks  old.  But  this  is  an  outside  view,  being  . 
designed  for  a  practical  end,  namely,  to  facilitate  com- 
parison between  his  duration  and  that  of  other  men.  In  • 
Bergson's  view,  time  thus  conceived,  mere  clock-time,  is 
a  "  spurious  concept  due  to  the  trespassing  of  the  idea  of 
space  upon  the  field  of  pure  consciousness."  Just  as  in  the 
case  of  the  movement  of  the  arrow  the  intellect  fails  to 
grasp  mobility  itself,  and  merely  resolves  it  into  the  path 
along  which  the  arrow  moves,  so  here  it  fails  to  grasp  true 
duration,  which  is  the  very  mobility  of  Being,  and  is  con- 
tent with  an  empty  medium  in  which  changes  are  said  to 
take  place. 

The  physicist  standing  on  the  bank  of  a  river  with  a  . 
stop-watch  in  his  hand  may  tell  the  drowning  man  that  he 
has  only  been  in  the  water  two  minutes  ;  and  yet,  in  that 
short  space  of  mathematical  time,  the  drowning  man  may  - 
have  reviewed  his  whole  life's  history.    From  the  mathe- 
matical point  of  view  those  two  minutes  are  the  same  as 
any  other  two  minutes  in  the  man's  life,  but  how  diflPerent 
to  the  man  himself  !  The  truth  is  that  experienced  dura-  • 
tion,  real  time,  is  not  uniform  nor  measurable.    It  is 
quality,  not  quantity.    It  is  not  the  path,  the  medium  in 
which  a  man  grows  old  :   it  is  the  very  process  of  growing 
old  itself. 

In  one  of  his  earlier  novels,  The  Time  Machine^  Mr. 
H.  G.  Wells  tries  to  work  out  the  intellectualist  view  that 
time  is  merely  an  empty  medium  in  which  changes  take 
place  ;  and  his  treatment  is  most  illuminating,  especially 
in  its  inconsistencies.  He  tells  the  story  of  a  scientist  who 
adopts  the  theory  that  time  is  a  fourth  dimension  of  space, 
and  invents  a  machine  which  can  ride  through  time  as  a 
bicycle  rides  through  space.  Seated  on  this  machine  it  is 
possible,  by  pulling  one  lever,  to  travel  into  the  past,  or, 
by  pulling  another,  to  shoot  into  the  future.  The  inventor 
sets  out  one  morning  and  rides  thousands  of  years  into  the 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

future.  Then  he  stops  the  machine,  and  lives  for  a  short 
time  under  the  new  conditions,  encountering  the  new  races 
of  men  which  have  sprung  meantime  into  existence.    His 
weird  experiences  are  described  in  detail.    Eventually  he 
succeeds  in  rescuing  his  machine  from  the  inhabitants, 
into  whose  hands  it  had  fallen,  and  rides  back  to  recount 
his  experiences.  Although  Wells  set  out  to  regard  time  as 
spatial,  it  seems  that  at  a  certain  point  he  could  not  help 
introducing  real  time,  which  is  something  quite  different. 
It  was  in  the  morning  that  the  inventor  started  ;   it  is  in 
the  evening  of  the  same  day  that  he  returns.  Now,  if  time 
is  only  a  fourth  dimension  of  space,  why  should  not  the 
man  have  ridden  back  to  the  same  point  from  which  he 
started  ?   Why  should  there  be  this  difference  of  nine  or 
ten  hours  P  It  is  due  to  the  accidental  introduction  of  real, 
as  opposed  to  mathematical,  time.   Wells  cannot  get  away 
from  the  fact  that  the  man  could  not  have  undergone  the 
experiences  which  he  describes  without  the  passing  of  real 
time.  Then,  again,  if  time  be  only  a  form  of  space,  there 
is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have  ridden  back  to  the 
same  conditions  as  well  as  to  the  same  minute.    Yet  the 
inventor  returns  hungry,  weary,   footsore,  and  blood- 
stained.   The  truth  is  that  there  is  a  confusion  between 
mathematical  time,  through  which  the  man  ridesy  and 
which  leaves  no  impress  upon  him,  and  real  time,  which 
he  livesy  and  which  leaves  on  him  its  indisputable  marks. 
The  first  kind  of  time  is  not  time  at  all.  If  it  had  been,  then 
when  the  inventor  had  travelled  through  a  few  years  and 
reached  the  allotted  span  of  human  life,  the  time-nmchine 
would  have  dashed  into  futurity  without  a  rider.  For  real  • 
time,  *'  like  an  ever-rolling  stream,  bears  all  its  sons  away."  - 
But  Wells  supposes  that  the  scientist  was  left  unaflFected, 
even  when  he  arrived  at  the  moment  of  his  own  death. 
Obviously  such  time  is,  as  Bergson  declares,  a  "  spurious 
concept" 


DURATION 

The  same  paradox  between  clock  time  and  real  time 
is  amusingly  depicted  in  Lewis  Carroll's  account  of  the 
Mad  Hatter's  Tea  Party  in  Jlice  in  Wonderland.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Mad  Hatter,  time  could  be  made  to  stop.  It  was 
because  he  himself  had  succeeded  in  stopping  time  that  the 
tea  party  was  always  going  on.  And  it  was  possible  to  j  ump 
from  one  point  in  time  to  another  without  living  through 
the  intervening  periods.  "  For  instance,"  he  says  to 
Alice,  "  suppose  it  were  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  just 
time  to  begin  lessons  :  you'd  only  have  to  whisper  a  hint 
to  Time,  and  round  goes  the  clock  in  a  twinkling  !  Half- 
past  one,  time  for  dinner  !  "  "  That  would  be  grand, 
certainly,"  said  Alice  thoughtfully  ;  "  but  then — I 
shouldn't  be  hungry  for  it,  you  know."  Obviously  Alice 
realizes  that  the  Mad  Hatter's  idea  of  time  was  insufficient 
to  represent  real  time.  It  was  a  mere  abstraction.  She  saw 
that  time  aflPects  persons  and  things,  leaving  them  hungry, 
or  somehow  diflFerent  from  what  they  were.  Real  time, 
then,  is  not  static  :  it  is  not  an  empty  medium  in  which 
changes  take  place  :  it  is  not  a  space  in  which  one  can 
jump  from  point  to  point.  It  is  the  very  process  of  change 
itself.  "  True  duration,"  says  Bergson,  "  is  essentially 
that  which  bites  things  and  which  leaves  on  them  the  im- 
print of  its  teeth.  If  everything  is  in  time,  everything 
changes  internally,  and  the  same  concrete  reality  is  never 
repeated.  .  .  .  We  cannot  think  real  time.  But  we  live  it 
because  life  surpasses  intelligence." 

To  seize  a  thing  suh  specie  durationis,  then,  does  not 
mean  to  spread  it  out  in  space,  but  to  enter  into  its  life, 
its  history,  by  a  living  understanding ;  to  see  it  as  it  endures 
by  changing  ;  to  grasp  it  as  a  true  duration. 


as 


I 


CHAPTER    III 

Consciousness 

WE  have  seen  how  the  use  of  Bergson's  new  philo- 
sophic method  solves  the  paradoxes  of  motion  : 
but,  however  urgent  these  problems  may  have 
been  to  Zeno,  they  can  scarcely  be  said  to  weigh  heavily  on 
the  modern  mind.  To-day  we  are  much  more  concerned 
with  problems  of  human  personality  ;  problems  of  the 
origin  and  evolution  of  life,  and  of  the  relation  between 
matter  and  spirit,  than  we  are  with  any  paradoxes  of 
motion  :  and  it  is  in  relation  to  these  peculiarly  modern 
problems  that  it  will  be  most  useful  to  test  the  possibilities 
of  the  new  method  of  intuition.  Will  it  really  work  ? 
Will  it  throw  any  light  on  the  problems  which  this  genera- 
tion most  earnestly  seeks  to  solve  ? 

A  whole  group  of  such  problems  centre  round  the 
nature  of  consciousness.  There  is  no  thoughtful  individual 
who  has  not  at  some  time  or  other  felt  the  pressure  and  the 
urgency  of  his  questionings  concerning  the  nature  of  his 
own  mind.  What  am  I  ?  Am  I  a  unity  or  a  multiplicity 
of  states  of  consciousness  ?  What  is  the  relation  between 
my  past,  my  present,  and  my  future  ?  Am  I  free,  or  are 
all  my  actions  and  thoughts  predetermined  ?  Have  I  any 
responsibility  for  my  destiny  ?  These  are  some  of  the  ques- 
tions which  occupy  the  modern  mind,  just  as  the  paradoxes 
of  motion  interested  antiquity.  Here,  then,  is  an  appro- 
priate province  for  the  first  test  of  the  value  of  the  new 
philosophic  method. 

At  first,  when  I  turn  my  attention  inwards  and  try  to 
introspect  my  mind,  I  find  juxtaposed  states  of  conscious- 
ness, each  in  turn  giving  place  to  the  next.  Suppose,  for 
example,  that  I  observe  what  is  happening  in  my  own  mind 
when  I  am  listening  to  a  lecture.  I  am  able  to  distinguish 
mental  processes  which  succeed  one  another.  I  hear  a 
voice  j  I  attend  to  what  is  being  said  ;  I  am  interested  in  a 

a6 


CONSCIOUSNESS 

fashionable  hat  in  front  of  me  ;  I  make  an  effort  to  attend 
again  to  the  lecture  ;  I  follow  the  argument ;  I  wish  that 
I  were  comfortably  reclining  in  an  armchair  ;  I  feel  a 
twinge  of  pain.  These  states  of  hearings  attending^  interest^ 
efforty  desire^  and  pain  appear  to  be  juxtaposed  to  one  an- 
other. Am  I,  then,  the  sum  of  all  such  states,  or  am  I 
something  behind  them  holding  them  together  ?  In  other 
words,  am  I  a  unity  or  a  multiplicity  of  states  P  The  pro- 
blem bristles  with  difficulties.  If  I  decide  that  I  am  the 
sum  of  the  states,  I  am  not  satisfied  ;  for  I  feel  in  the 
depths  of  my  being  that  I  am  something  more  than  dis- 
appearing states.  On  the  other  hand,  if  I  decide  that  I  am 
a  unity — something  permanent  behind  the  states,  a  kind 
of  thread  holding  them  together — I  am  still  dissatisfied. 
This  view  makes  me  too  attenuated.  I  seem  to  have  no 
content.  Surely  I  am  something  more  than  a  thin  ab- 
straction— a  unity,  an  unknown  something,  *•,  holding 
states  of  consciousness  together. 

How  is  this  difficulty  to  be  solved  ?  Bergson  would  say 
that  the  difficulty,  like  the  paradoxes  of  motion,  arises 
from  an  attempt  to  know  a  true  duration  by  analysis.  By 
this  method  Zeno  was  able  to  prove  that  an  arrow  in  flight 
could  not  move.  By  taking  snapshots  of  a  movement,  and 
juxtaposing  them  in  space,  he  was  able  to  convert  mobility 
into  a  series  of  fixed  positions.  The  superficial  introspec- 
tion of  self,  which  results  in  its  analysis  into  separate 
states  of  consciousness,  is  exactly  analogous.  It  is  the  taking 
of  snapshots  of  what  is  moving  ;  the  spatializing  of  a  true 
duration.  It  turns  a  dynamic  flux  into  separate  states  of 
consciousness,  that  is,  into  things  that  are  static.  It  distorts 
the  self,  for  it  sees  it  from  without,  instead  of  from  within. 

Not  only  eitemal  objects,  but  even  our  own  mental  itates,  are 
icrecned  from  us  in  their  inmost,  their  personal  aspect,  in  the 
original  life  they  possess.  When  we  feel  love  or  hatred,  when  we 

27 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 


are  gay  or  sad,  is  it  really  the  feeling  itself  that  reaches  our  con- 
sciousness with  those  innumerable  fleeting  shades  of  meaning  and 
deep  resounding  echoes  that  make  it  something  altogether  our 
own  ?  We  should  all,  w4re  it  so,  be  novelists  or  poets  or  musi- 
cians. Mostly,  however,  we  perceive  nothing  but  the  outward 
display  of  our  mental  state.  We  catch  only  the  impersonal  aspect 
of  our  feelings,  that  aspect  which  speech  has  set  down  once  for  all 
because  it  is  almost  the  same,  in  the  same  conditions,  for  all  men. 
Thus,  even  in  our  own  individual,  individuality  escapes  our  ken. 
We  move  amidst  generalities  and  symbols,  as  within  a  tilt-yard  in 
which  our  force  is  effectively  pitted  against  other  forces ;  and 
fascinated  by  action,  tempted  by  it,  for  our  own  good,  on  to  the 
field  it  has  selected,  we  live  in  a  zone  midway  between  things  and 
ourselves,  externally  to  things,  externally  also  to  ourselves.^ 

What  we  have  to  do,  then,  in  order  to  solve  the  paradox 
between  the  unity  of  self  and  the  multiplicity  of  states,  is  to 
get  deeper  into  ourselves.  We  have  to  try  to  seize  our  own 
consciousness  in  its  flowing  through  time,  to  grasp  it  by 
intuition.  And  when  we  succeed  in  doing  this  we  find 
that  it  is  neither  a  unity  nor  a  multiplicity  of  states.  In  a 
sense,  it  is  both  at  once  :  for  it  is  essentially  a  dynamic 
duration,  a  continuous  and  creative  flux. 

Put  aside  artificial  reconstructions  of  thinking  .  .  .  consider 
thinking  itself;  you  will  find  directions  rather  than  states,  and 
you  will  see  that  thinking  is  essentially  a  continual  and  continuous 
change  of  inward  direction.' 

Viewed  from  within,  the  separated  states  of  conscious- 
ness are  seen  to  telescope  into  each  other.    For  example, . 
no  one  can  say  when  a  state  of  joy  begins  or  ends.   It 
may  influence  judgment  after  judgment,  perception  after 
perception  :  in  short,  it  may  reverberate  through  the  whole 

1  LaugA/fr,  pp.  153-4. 

*  Min J  Energy  (translated  by  Wildon  Carr),  1920,  p.  45. 

28 


CONSCIOUSNESS 

gamut  of  experiences.   On  this  account  an  individual  can  • 
never  have  precisely  the  same  experience  twice.   The  in- 
tervening developments  will  be  accumulated  in  the  second 
experience,  and  will  thus  modify  it  in  its  depths,  even  if  it 
be  the  same  superficially. 

There  is  a  succession  of  states,  each  of  which  announces  that 
which  follows  and  contains  that  which  precedes  it.  They  can, 
properly  speaking,  only  be  said  to  form  multiple  states  when  I 
have  already  passed  them  and  turn  back  to  observe  their  track. 
Whilst  I  was  experiencing  them  they  were  so  solidly  organized, 
so  profoundly  animated  with  a  common  life,  that  I  could  not  have 
said  where  any  one  of  them  finished  or  where  another  com- 
menced. In  reality  no  one  of  them  begins  or  ends,  but  all  extend 
into  each  other .^ 

Consciousness,  then,  is  essentially  process  and  change. 
Man  is  "hurled  from    change   to  change  unceasingly, 
his  souFs  wings  never  furled."    His  consciousness  con- 
tinually expands,  develops,  and  ripens.  As  Bergson  puts  it,  • 
his  whole  psychical  existence  is  something  like  a  "  single  • 
sentence,  continued  since  the  first  awakening  of  conscious-  > 
ness,  interspersed  with  commas,  but  never  broken  by  full-  • 
stops."* 

Above  all  else,  consciousness  signifies  memory,  the  pre-  • 
servation  and  accumulation  of  the  past  in  the  present.  But 
it  is  not  only  memory  ;  it  is  also  anticipation  of  the  future. 
There  is  no  consciousness  without  a  certain  attention  to 
life,  and  attention  is  expectation  or  anticipation  of  the 
future.  Indeed,  even  when  the  mind  is  occupied  with 
what  now  is,  it  is  specially  concerned  with  what  is  about 
to  be. 

"  We  recline  on  our  past  and  incline  towards  our  future, 

1  An  Introduction  to  Metaphysics,  pp.  9-10. 
*  Mind  Energy,  p.  56. 

29 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

and  that  reclining  and  inclining  seem  to  be  the  very 
essence  of  our  consciousness."^ 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  this  view  of  consciousness 
allows  of  a  certain  measure  of  freedom  to  each  individual. 
Indeed,  it  provides  a  solution  to  the  greatest  of  modern 
paradoxes — that  of  free  will.  On  one  occasion  Dr.  John- 
son is  reported  to  have  said  that  all  argument  is  against  free 
will  but  all  experience  is  in  its  favour.  And  it  is  certainly 
true  that  when  it  comes  to  an  argument  between  a  deter- 
minist  and  a  supporter  of  free  will,  the  former  usually  wins. 
Logic  seems  to  favour  him.  Yet  he  never  converts  the 
opponent  who  continues  to  feel  himself  free.  There  ap- 
pears, then,  to  be  a  contradiction  between  logic  and  im- 
mediate experience  in  regard  to  free  will,  similar  to  that 
underlying  Zeno's  paradoxes  of  motion. 

Bergson  shows  that  this  difficulty  arises  from  the 
spatializing  of  consciousness  ;  the  artificial  reconstruction 
of  a  duration  into  fixed  and  mutually  exclusive  states.  The 
device  of  the  determinist  is  to  view  every  act  from  without 
retrospectively,  to  separate  it  from  its  before  and  after, 
to  take  snapshots  of  a  duration.  And  just  as  Zeno  found  no 
room  for  motion  when  he  viewed  the  flight  of  the  arrow  in 
this  way,  so  the  determinist  finds  no  room  for  freedom  in 
human  consciousness.  But  Bergson  advocates  viewing  the 
act  from  within,  if  we  would  know  whether  it  is  free  or 
caused.  If  it  issues  from  the  real  self,  if  it  reclines  on  the 
whole  of  the  past  and  inclines  towards  the  future,  it  is  a 
free  act,  **  since  the  self  alone  will  have  been  the  author  of 
it,  and  since  it  will  express  the  whole  of  the  self."  •  On  the 
other  hand,  if  it  expresses  some  superficial  idea,  almost  ex- 
ternal to  the  drive  of  the  individual's  life,  it  is  not  free,  but 
caused.   For  example,  suppose  that  an  individual  were  to 

^  Life  and  Consciousness  {flibbert  Journal,  October  191 1), 
p.  28. 

■  Essai  surles  Donn^es  Immediate s  de  la  Conscience,  p.  i66. 

30 


CONSCIOUSNESS 

attend  an  educational  meeting.  Was  that  an  act  of  free 
will  ?  Bergson  would  reply  that  it  all  depends  on  the  re- 
lation that  existed  between  that  single  act  and  the  whole 
experience  of  the  individual.  The  act  cannot  be  judged  in 
isolation  ;  nor  can  it  be  understood  if  viewed  from  with- 
out. If  the  individual  put  in  an  appearance  at  the  meeting 
because  someone  happened  to  ask  him  to  go,  or  because  he 
was  at  a  loss  for  something  to  do,  then  the  action  was  not 
free.  It  was  caused  by  his  environment.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  attended,  because  education  was  one  of  the 
dominant  interests  of  his  life,  in  other  words,  if  his  action 
issued  from  the  depths  of  his  being,  then  it  wdsfree.  Free- 
dom, then,  rests  not  so  much  on  the  inexplicability  of  ac- 
tions, as  on  the  fact  that  certain  actions  are  to  be  explained 
only  by  the  whole  drive  of  consciousness.  And  although 
only  those  acts  are  free  which  issue  from  the  urge  of  con- 
sciousness itself,  yet  freedom  in  this  sense  is  declared  by 
Bergson  to  be  one  of  the  clearest  facts  established  by  the 
method  of  intuition. 

But  it  may  be  argued  that  this  admission  of  freedom 
into  the  universe  is  against  the  findings  of  science,  and, 
in  particular,  is  in  direct  contradiction  to  the  law  of  con- 
servation of  energy.  In  reply,  Bergson  shows  that  the  law 
of  conservation  of  energy,  like  all  physical  laws,  is  no  more 
than  a  deduction  from  observations  oi physical  phenomena, 
and  therefore  to  extend  it  arbitrarily  to  />jyfA/V^7/ phenomena 
is  both  illegitimate  and  unscientific,  at  least  until  it  has 
been  verified  in  cases  in  which  consciousness  feels  itself  in 
possession  of  a  free  activity.  But  so  far  this  has  not  been 
done  :  and  the  onus  of  proof,  therefore,  still  remains  with 
those  who  hold  that  the  feeling  of  freedom  is  illusory. 

Closely  interwoven  with  the  question  of  free  will  is  that 
of  the  relation  between  body  and  mind.  The  brain  of  an 
individual  is  in  space,  and  is  subject  to  the  laws  of  matter  : 
his  consciousness  is  in  time  j   it  is  a  true  duration,  which 

31 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

apparently  can  create,  that  is,  can  yield  more  than  it  re- 
ceives. How,  then,  are  these  two  related  ? 

It  would  take  too  long  to  examine  all  the  arguments 
put  forward  by  Bergson  in  Matihe  et  MSmoire  in  support 
of  his  view  of  the  relation  between  body  and  mind.  It  is 
perhaps  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  notice  that  certain 
facts  connected  with  the  onset  of  mental  diseases,  and  in 
particular  of  progressive  aphasia,  are  shown  to  be  incon- 
sistent with  the  belief  that  there  is  a  point-to-point  corres- 
pondence between  cerebral  and  mental  changes.  Whatever 
may  be  true  of  sensations  and  movements,  it  is  highly  im- 
probable that  there  is  any  sort  of  equivalency  between 
cerebral  changes  and  memories,  or  between  cerebral  de- 
rangement and  loss  of  memory.  Bergson,  therefore,  re- 
jects all  forms  of  the  theory  of  parallelism  between  body  ' 
and  mind.  The  brain  is  not  the  organ  of  consciousness  in  ■ 
general,  nor  even  of  memory.  It  is  rather  the  organ  of  at- 
tention  to  life.  Its  function  is  to  keep  the  mind  fixed  on 
that  part  of  the  material  world  which  concerns  its  action. 
Only  a  small  part  of  what  takes  place  in  consciousness  is 
thus  translated  by  its  mediation  into  movement.  The  brain 
is,  as  it  were,  only  the  point  of  insertion  of  mind  in  matter  : 
it  is  merely  a  sensori-motor  organ. 

According  to  Bergson,  then,  human  consciousness  in  its  ' 
innermost  nature  is  a  duration — a  dynamic  flux.  It  is  not  a  • 
series  of  separated  states,  mechanically  related.  It  develops 
from  within,  ever  enriching  itself  by  experience  ;  and  it  is 
free  and  creative  when  it  is  most  itself.  It  is  at  once  an 
accumulation  of  the  past  and  a  drive  towards  the  future. 
In  short,  it  is  supra-mechanical.  And  although  it  uses  the 
brain  in  order  to  insert  itself  into  matter  for  purposes  of 
action,  it  overflows  the  body  both  in  space  and  time.  It 
is,  therefore,  not  improbable  that  it  nuy  even  survive  the 
disintegration  of  the  body. 


3a 


CHAPTER    IV 

Creative  Evolution 

THE  use  of  Bergson's  new  philosophic  method  has 
revealed  the  truth  that  human  consciousness  at 
its  deepest  is  a  true  duration,  a  creative  mobility  ; 
and  incidentally  light  has  been  thrown  on  some  of  the  most 
controversial  problems  of  personality.  It  will  probably  be 
agreed  that  the  value  of  the  new  method  has  been  proved 
within  the  province  to  which  it  has  so  for  been  applied. 
But  it  may  be  argued  that  to  grasp  the  self  by  intuition  is 
comparatively  easy,  and  that  serious  difficulties  will  only 
arise  when  we  try  to  grasp  what  is  outside  ourselves.  "  We 
may  sympathize  intellectually  with  nothing  else,  but  we 
certainly  sympathize  with  our  own  selves." ^  To  test  the 
value  of  the  method  in  relation  to  our  own  consciousness 
is  therefore  not  enough  :  we  must  ask  what  light  it  throws 
on  other  forms  of  change.  It  has  already  been  shown  that 
the  ancient  paradoxes  of  motion  can  be  solved  by  means  of 
it  ;  and  its  application  has  been  even  more  fruitful  and 
illuminating  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  life — both  the  life  of 
an  individual  organism,  and  life  as  it  passes  from  generation  . 
to  generation. 

According  to  Bergson,  any  living  organism,  no  matter 
where  it  stands  in  the  scale  of  evolution,  is  something  more 
than  a  machine.  In  the  first  place  it  is  a  true  individual, 
having  been  isolated  and  closed  in  by  Nature  herself,  and 
not  merely  by  our  ways  of  perception. 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  a  machine  has  a  low  kind  of 
individuality  in  so  far  as  it  embodies  one  purpose  present  to 
the  mind  of  the  inventor.  But  the  individuality  or  whole- 
ness of  an  organism  is  not  that  of  the  machine  order  ;  for, 
when  a  part  of  it  is  destroyed  by  mechanical  violence,  the 
remaining  sections  sometimes  succeed  in  regenerating  the 
lost  part.  The  newt  that  loses  a  limb  can  grow  another  5 
*  An  Introduction  to  Metaphysics,  p.  8. 

33  c 


!i 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

but  the  bicycle  that  loses  a  wheel  has  no  such  power  of  in- 
ternal regeneration.  It  can  only  be  repaired  by  the  inven- 
tor, or  those  to  whom  its  secret  stands  revealed.  But  a  liv- 
ing organism  seems  to  have  within  itself  an  Han,  an  urge 
towards  completeness.  This  is  strikingly  borne  out  by 
some  recent  discoveries  in  embryology.  If  the  develop- 
ment of  an  organism  were  mechanical,  then  certain  parts 
of  the  embryo  would  always  develop  into  corresponding 
parts  of  the  mature  organism.  But  it  has  been  shown  by 
Driesch  that  if,  for  example,  the  egg  of  the  sea-urchin  be 
taken  when  it  consists  of  two  cells,  and  one  of  them  be 
killed,  there  results  not  a  part  of  an  organism — ^as  would  be 
required  according  to  the  machine  theory — but  a  complete 
organism  of  smaller  size.  And  a  similar  result  is  obtained 
if  the  experiment  be  tried  at  the  four-cleavage  cell  stage. 

•  The  only  conclusion  that  can  be  drawn  is,  therefore,  that 

•  the  organism  is,  as  it  were,  machine  and  inventor  rolled 
into  one.  There  is  at  work  within  it  a  directive  principle — 
something  supra-mechanical. 

This  urge  towards  completeness — this  Han  vital — will 
never,  of  course,  be  apprehended  by  intellectual  analysis. 
Snarley  Bob  in  Jacks'  Mad  Shepherds  realized  this  when, 
in  his  own  quaint  way,  he  criticized  Shoemaker  Hankin. 

Now,  there's  Shoemaker  Hankin — a  man  as  could  talk  the 
hind-leg  ofFa  'oss.  He  goes  at  it  like  a  hammer,  and  thinks  as  he's 
openin'  things  out ;  but  all  the  time  he's  shuttin'  on  'em  in  and 
nailin'  on  'em  up  in  their  coffins.  One  day  he  begins  talkin'  about 
"  Life,"  and  sez  as  how  he  can  explain  it  in  half  a  shake.  "  You'll 
•  have  to  kill  it  first,  Tom,"  I  sez,  "  or  it'll  kick  the  bottom  out  o' 
'  your  little  box."  "  Tm  going  to  /lanniliT^e  it,"  he  sez.  "  That 
means  you're  goin'  to  chop  it  up,"  I  sez, "  so  that  it's  bound  to  be 
dead  before  we  gets  hold  on  it.  All  right,  Tom,  fire  away  !  Tell 
us  all  about  dead  life." 

The  directive  principle  in  an  organism — life — has,  then, 

34 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

•  to  be  grasped  by  intuition.   According  to  Bergson,  when 

•  thus  apprehended  it  reveals  itself  as  perpetually  creating. 
'  The  living  organism  develops  ;   its  past  is  preserved  in  its 

present ;  it  has  the  mysterious  quality  of  duration.  Its  very 
essence  is  to  change,  and  to  endure  by  changing.  "  Con- 
tinuity of  change,  preservation  of  the  past  in  the  present, 
true  duration — the  living  organism  seems,  then,  to  share 
these  attributes  with  consciousness. "^ 

Bergson  goes  further,  and  showrs  that  not  only  the 
development  of  the  individual,  but  the  evolution  of  new 
species  is  due  to  this  innate  creativeness.  In  what  is  per- 
haps his  greatest  work.  Creative  Evolution,  he  traces  the 
development  of  the  various  forms  of  vegetable  and  animal 
life,  not  so  much  because  he  is  interested  in  the  forms  them- 

•  selves,  but  because  he  seeks  to  find  the  nature  of  the  life 

•  urge  which  pushes  its  way  along  the  paths  of  evolution. 
He  maintains  that  the  sciences,  which  are  concerned  with 

-  life,  usually  confine  themselves  to  the  visible  forms  of  living 
beings,  their  organs  and  anatomical  elements.  They  make 
comparisons  between  these  forms  ;  they  reduce  the  more 
complex  to  the  simple  ;  in  short,  they  study  the  workings 
of  life  in  what  are,  so  to  speak,  only  its  visual  symbols. 
They  are  concerned  with  fixed  states  of  the  moving, 
snapshots  taken  across  the  current  of  life.  Using  this 
method  of  analysis,  it  is  quite  possible  to  arrive  at  a  theory 
of  mechanical  evolution.  For  example,  some  neo- 
Darwinian  biologists  explain  the  evolution  of  species  by 
the  blind  mechanical  operation  of  natural  selection. 
Changes  in  organisms  are  responses  to  changes  in  environ- 
ment, and  by  the  working  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  those  which  happen  to  be  most  suitable  have  a 
better  chance  of  being  transmitted.  So,  according  to 
Darwin's  followers  (although  Darwin  himself  did  not  go 
so  far),  evolution  proceeds  mechanically.  But  what  Berg- 
^  U Evolution  Cr^atrice  (19 14),  p.  24. 

35 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

son  would  have  us  do  is  to  grasp  the  continuity,  the  urge, 
which  traversing  generations  binds  individuals  to  indivi- 
duals, and  species  to  species,  and  makes  of  the  entire  series 
one  immense  vague  current. 

What  if  all  of  animated  nature 
Be  but  organic  harps  diversely  framed, 
That  tremble  into  thought,  as  o*er  them  sweeps 
Plastic  and  vast,  one  intellectual  breeze. 
At  once  the  soul  of  each,  and  God  of  all  ?  ^ 

The  method  of  intellectual  analysis  may  do  for  the 
static  forms,  the  "  organic  harps "  through  which  the 
movement  sweeps,  but  it  is  quite  inadequate  for  the  appre- 
hension of  the  "  intellectual  breeze." 

Too  often  [says  Bergson]  we  concentrate  on  the  forms  of  life 
rather  than  its  progress  ;  forgetting  that  even  the  permanence  of 
the  forms  is  only  the  design  of  a  movement.  But  sometimes  the 
invisible  breeze  which  sweeps  through  them  is  materialized  to  our 
gaze  in  a  fugitive  apparition.  We  have  this  sudden  illumination  in 
the  face  of  certain  forms  of  maternal  love — love  which  is  so 
striking  and  touching  in  the  case  of  most  animals,  and  which  is 
even  observable  in  the  sohcitude  of  the  plant  for  its  seed.  This 
love,  in  which  some  have  seen  the  great  mystery  of  life,  will  per- 
haps  solve  for  us  its  secret.  It  shows  us  each  generation  passion- 
ately devoted  to  that  which  follows  it.  It  teaches  us  that  the 
hving  being  is  pre-eminently  a  resting-place,  and  that  the  essence 
of  life  remains  in  the  movement  which  transmits  it.* 

Bergson  claims  that,  apprehended  by  intuition,  life  or 

evolution  reveals  itself  as  unceasing  creation.    "  There  is 

•  an  original  creative  impulse  in  life  which  passes  from 

generation  to  generation,"  and  which  is  comparable  to  a 

kind  of  effort — "  an  effort  of  far  greater  depth  and  far 

1  Coleridge  :   Thi  Eolian  Harp, 
*  V Evolution  Cr^atricCy  p.  139. 

36 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

more  independent  of  circumstances  than  that  of  the  in- 
dividual." It  is  this  which  is  the  motive-power  in  the  long 
process  of  organic  evolution.  It  is  not,  indeed,  out  of 
relation  to  matter,  but  its  direction  is  never  wholly 
determined  by  it. 

I  doubt  [says  Bergson]  that  the  evolution  of  hfe  will  ever  be 
explained  by  a  mere  combination  of  mechanical  forces.  Ob-  > 
viously  there  is  a  vital  impulse  .  .  .  something  which  ever  seeks 
to  transcend  itself,  to  extract  from  itself  more  than  there  is — in  a 
word,  to  create.  Now,  a  force  which  draws  from  itself  more  than 
it  contains,  which  gives  more  than  it  has,  is  precisely  what  is  called 
a  spiritual  force.^ 

This  force  has  found  resistances  in  matter  and  en- 
countered obstacles  in  every  direction.   The  result  is  that 
it  has  scattered  itself  along  many  divergent  lines  of  evolu- 
tion. Along  some  it  has  been  successful,  along  others  it  has 
failed.    In  some  cases  the  opposing  forces  have  been  too 
strong,  liberty  has  been  dogged  by  automatism,  and  in  the 
long  run  has  been  stifled  by  it.   But  along  other  lines  the 
creative  impulse  has  succeeded,  at  least  partially,  in  freeing 
itself  from  necessity  ;  and  in  man  its  chain  has  at  last  been 
broken.    The  scheme  of  evolution  is  therefore  not  to  be  • 
represented  by  a  single  line.   It  is  rather  like  the  path  of  an  • 
explosive  shell  which  scatters  itself  in  all  directions,  the 
fragments  in  turn  separating  into  other  fragments.    Al- 
though, then,  there  is  one  original  creative  impulse,  there  ' 
are  distinguishable  divergent  lines  of  evolution. 

Vegetable  and  animal  life  correspond  to  two  such 
divergent  developments.  The  former  tends  to  specialize  in 
the  direction  of  obtaining  its  food  from  air,  earth,  and 
water  ;  that  is,  it  perfects  mechanisms  for  the  accumulation 
of  energy;  and  it  loses  the  power  of  iret  movement.    The 

*  Life  and  Consciousness  {Hibbert  Journal,  October  191 1), 
p.  40. 

37 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

latter  tends  to  develop  mechanisms  for  a  freer  output  of 
energy,  and  it  is  distinguished  by  its  mobility.  It  is  able  to 
obtain  its  food  from  vegetables  and  from  other  animals,  and 
it  tends  to  live  a  life  of  action.  This  means  adventure 
and  risk,  but  it  probably  also  means  the  awakening  of  con- 
sciousness. The  tendencies  characteristic  of  the  two  king- 
doms to  some  extent  co-exist  in  both  ;  but  there  is  a  differ- 
ence of  emphasis,  and  this  serves  to  distinguish  the  two 
courses  along  which  the  creative  impulse  has  pushed  its  way. 

In  the  animal  kingdom  evolution  seems  to  have  taken 
place  along  four  main  lines  ;  in  two  of  which,  the 
molluscs  and  the  echinoderms,  it  has  been  defeated  by 
automatism  ;  and  in  the  remaining  two  of  which,  the 
vertebrates  and  the  arthropods,  it  has  been  relatively  suc- 
cessful. The  former  took  the  safe  path  and  developed 
shells  or  other  protective  armour,  thus  sacrificing  their 
mobility  and  encouraging  the  advent  of  torpor.  These  two 
lines,  indeed,  appear  to  be  mere  blind  alleys  along  which 
the  creative  urge  can  find  no  further  outlet.  But  in  the 
vertebrates,  the  highest  representative  of  which  is  man, 
and  in  the  line  of  the  arthropods,  which  has  reached  its 
highest  expression  in  ants  and  bees,  there  is  no  such  sacri- 
fice of  mobility  to  safety  :  and  along  these  two  lines 
evolution  is  still  proceeding. 

Thus,  leaving  out  certain  recoils  towards  vegetable  life, 
.  animal  evolution  might  be  said  to  be  accomplishing  itself 
.  along  two  main  paths  ;  the  one  leading,  in  the  main,  to 
.  the  life  of  instinct,  the  other  to  the  life  of  intelligence. 

The  higher  arthropods  have  developed  some  elaborate 
and  relatively  perfect  devices  which  tend  towards  the  pre- 
servation of  the  individual  and  the  species.  They  are  able 
to  deal  with  a  few  situations  in  a  way  unequalled  by  the 
vertebrates,  but  they  are  characterized  by  an  incapacity 
for  solving  quite  simple  difficulties  with  which  they  are 
unBimiliar. 

38 


i 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

For  example,  the  solitary  wasp  exhibits  a  wonderful 
chain  instinct  at  the  nesting  season.  She  begins  by  making 
a  hole  in  the  ground  ;  then  she  hunts  for  an  edible  cater- 
pillar, which  she  stings  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  paralyzed, 
but  not  killed  ;  she  drags  this  to  the  mouth  of  the  hole, 
leaves  it  outside  while  she  enters  to  see  that  all  is  well, 
comes  out  again,  pushes  or  pulls  the  caterpillar  in,  and  lays 
her  egg  upon  it.  Then  she  proceeds  to  cover  up  the  hole. 
The  purpose  served  by  the  stinging  of  the  caterpillar  is 
obvious.  Its  paralysis  is  necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  egg, 
and  when  the  little  wasp  needs  it  there  will  be  at  its  dis- 
posal a  store  of  fresh  meat.  This  item  in  the  series,  and, 
indeed,  the  whole  chain,  is  wonderfully  adapted  for  the 
preservation  of  the  species. 

Can  we  suppose,  then,  that  the  solitary  wasp  is  conscious 
of  the  purpose  that  is  served  by  its  actions,  and  has  the 
general  knowledge  of  chemistry  and  anatomy  necessary  for 
performing  intelligently  the  surgical  operation  on  the 
caterpillar  ?  From  their  study  of  the  behaviour  of  this 
species  Fabre  and  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Peckham  agree  that  it  is 
impossible  to  suppose  that  the  chain  of  actions  is  carried 
out  intelligently.  Rather  it  takes  place  like  clockwork. 
If  the  caterpillar  is  removed  when  the  wasp  leaves  it  out- 
side the  nest,  the  whole  cycle  will  begin  again.  And  no 
matter  how  many  times  this  is  done,  the  wasp  apparently 
does  not  profit  by  experience,  nor  modify  the  series  of  ac- 
tions, as  it  would  do  if  it  were  conscious  of  the  purpose 
served  by  the  cycle  of  events.  It  is  therefore  difficult  to 
suppose  that  it  has  a  general  knowledge  of  the  anatomy  of 
caterpillars.  It  is  more  likely  that  in  this  special  case  it  has 
the  power  of  momentarily  becoming  one  with  its  victim. 
It  is  in  "  sympathy  "  with  it,  so  that  there  are  not  two 
organisms,  but  two  activities  within  one  organism.  This 
supposition  would  account  both  for  the  accuracy  and  the 
small  range  of  actions  that  are  possible     Instinct,  then, 

39 


y 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

works  organically  ;  it  does  a  few  things  supremely  well  ; 
but  it  fails  when  an  unexpeaed  element  enters  into  the 
situation. 

The  average  surgeon,  working  intelligently  and  by 

means  of  his  general  knowledge  of  anatomy,  probably 

never  performs  an  operation  with  such  skill  as  that  shown 

by  the  solitary  wasp.   But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  never 

.  so  entirely  nonplussed  by  variations  in  the  situation.   He  is 

working  intelligently  and  not  instinctively,  and  the  dis- 

.  tinguishing  characteristic  of  intelligence  is  its  adaptability, 

.  its  power  of  grasping  the  general  element  in  a  situation  and 

.  relating  it  to  past  experiences.   This  power  seems  to  have 

been  purchased  at  a  great  cost,  and  its  acquisition  has  meant 

the  partial  loss  of  the  characteristic  in  which  instinct  excel 

— that  of  perfect  mastery  over  a  few  special  situations 

intimately  connected  with  life  processes. 

•  Of  course,  there  are  surgeons  who  seem  to  combine  the 

•  power  of  grasping  the  general  element  in  a  situation  with 
an  immediate  "  feeling  "  for  the  individuality  of  the  organ- 
ism with  which  they  are  dealing.  These  are  the  born  sur- 
geons, who  work  both  intelligently  and  instinctively :  that 

.  is,  they  work  intuitively.   According  to  Bergson,  intuition 

•  is  instinct  become  conscious  of  itself.    It  is  not  opposed  to 
'    intelligence,  but  it  transcends  and  completes  the  findings  of 

intelligence. 

We  do  not  obtain  an  intuition  from  reality  [says  Bergson] — 
that  is,  an  intellectual  sympathy  with  the  most  intimate  part  of  it 
— unless  we  have  won  its  confidence  by  a  long  fellowship  with  its 
superficial  manifestations.^ 

•  It  is  this  close  connection  with  the  findings  of  the  in- 

•  telligence  that  differentiates  Bergsonian  intuition  from  the 
intuition  of  the  poet.  Bergson  constantly  appeals  to  con- 
crete science  in  preparation  for  the  process  of  intuition. 

1  An  Introduction  to  Metaphysics^  p.  77. 

40 


I 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

And  the  result  is  that  he  is  not  only  able  to  tell  us  vaguely, 
as  Wordsworth  did,  that  there  is  in  the  universe 

A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 

All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought. 

And  rolls  through  all  things  : — ^ 

but  he  is  able  to  describe  along  what  different  lines  the 
spirit  has  expressed  itself,  and  how  it  has  fared  in  its  en- 
counters with  opposing  forces.  His  vision  of  the  process 
of  evolution  is  characterized  by  an  accuracy  that  could  only 
have  come  from  the  consideration  of  relevant  scientific 
data,  and  it  has  at  the  same  time  all  the  charms  and 
audacities  of  a  work  of  art.  It  is  therefore  not  only 
fundamentally  satisfying,  but  it  is  rich  in  suggestive  detail. 

1  Tintem  Abbey, 


41 


CHAPTER  V 
Mans  Place  in  Nature 

THE  whole  process  of  evolution  is  a  drama  of 
creation.  It  is  true  that  there  have  been  frequent 
set-backs  in  the  evolution  of  organic  life.  Again 
and  again,  the  original  creative  drive  has  encountered  such 
resistance  that  it  has  failed  to  win  through  in  some  direc- 
tions. Waste  products  have  been  relentlessly  thrown  aside, 
and  vital  impulses  have  sometimes  been  made  captive  by 
the  wtry  mechanisms  which  they  themselves  have  created 
as  instruments  of  liberty.  But  the  original  creative  impulse 
does  not  confine  itself  to  one  path  or  to  one  mode  of  expres- 
sion. If  it  has  foiled  in  some  directions  it  has  succeeded  in 
others.  In  the  case  of  the  vertebrates  and  the  arthropods  it 
has  gone  on  conquering  and  to  conquer  ;  and  in  man  it 
has  at  last  achieved  a  unique  success.  In  him  it  has  defeated 
the  opposing  forces  of  automatism,  and  has  won  for  itself  a 
measure  of  real  freedom. 

Man  is  thus  in  a  very  real  sense  "  the  consummation  of 
this  scheme  of  being,  the  completion  of  this  sphere  of  life." 
He  is  the  raison  cPHre  of  evolution.  Not  that  he  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  end  which  was  implicit  from  the  beginning. 
That  supposition  would  be  equivalent  to  a  denial  of  crea- 
tive, as  opposed  to  mechanical,  evolution.  According  to 
Bergson,  evolution  is  neither  a  finished  nor  a  predetermined 
process.  It  is  essentially  and  unceasingly  creative.  Man 
was  a  new  creation.  There  was  nothing  inevitable  about 
his  appearance.  Rather  the  creative  impulse  took  a  sudden 
and  unpredictable  leap  from  the  lower  vertebrate  animals 
to  man,  and  thus  made  an  unparalleled  advance  in  its  high 
adventure. 

How,  then,  is  man  differentiated  from  the  lower  verte- 
brates .?  What  constitutes  his  unique  success  .?   Like  them 
he  concentrated  on  a  life  of  action,  and  yet  it  was  only  in  , 
his  case  that  the  chain  of  necessity  was  broken. 

42 


f 

t, 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  NATURE 

In  the  first  place  he  manufactured  instruments  to  widen 
the  sphere  of  his  activities.   He  invented  an  almost  illimit-  . 
able  number  of  motor  mechanisms,  and  thus  divided  auto-  . 
matism  against  itself    His  mind  possesses  this  remarkable 
feature,  says  Bergson,  "  that  it  can  oppose  to  every  con-  . 
tracted  habit  another  habit,  to  every  kind  of  automatism 
another  automatism,  so  that  in  man  liberty  succeeds  in 
freeing  itself  by  setting  necessity  to  fight  against  necessity."^  • 
The  driver  of  a  primitive  steam-engine  had  no  oppor- 
tunities for  relaxation.  His  whole  mind  was  engaged  in  the 
difficult  task  of  driving,  and  he  was  thus  in  a  sense  the  slave 
of  the  machine.   But  when  the  engine  was  improved  and 
more  mechanical  devices  were  added  the  driver  was  so 
much  less  its  slave.   The  increase  in  the  number  of  auto- 
matic adjustments  left  him  freer  to  think  his  own  thoughts 
and  to  be  himself   So  it  was  in  the  evolution  of  man.   He 
not  only  succeeded  in  inventing  motor  mechanisms  as  did* 
the  lower  vertebrates,  but  by  inventing  them  in  sufficient 
complexity  and  number  he  succeeded  in  remaining  free  to 
use  them  as  it  pleased  him. 

The  high  development  of  his  social  life  was  another 
factor  which  separated  him  from  the  lower  animals.  By 
means  of  social  intercourse  efforts  can  be  stored,  and  can 
not  only  be  appreciated  by  the  average,  but  they  can  also 
be  utilized  by  the  exceptional  members  of  the  group  as 
"  stepping  stones  to  higher  things." 

Man  is  also  distinguished  from  tl)e  lower  animals  in  re- 
gard to  his  use  of  language.  It  is  probable  that  without 
language  his  intelligence  would  have  been  riveted  to 
material  objects  ;  but  its  invention  provided  him  with  an 
immaterial  body,  in  which  consciousness  could  incarnate 
itself  New  opportunities  of  creation  and  greater  freedom 
of  choice  thus  became  possible  to  him. 

Perhaps  Bergson  has  not  sufliciently  realized  the  full 
^  Life  and  Consciousness,  p.  40. 

43 


i 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

*•  significance  of  the  development  of  language  in  man.  By 
its  use  his  time  span  has  been  increased.  He  is  able  to  look 
forward  further  into  the  future,  to  define  ends,  and  to  work 
towards  ideals  ;  and  thus  his  conduct  is  no  longer  entirely 
the  outcome  of  the  push  from  behind,  even  if  that  be 

•  creative,  but  is  also  influenced  by  the  attraction  of  ideals. 
The  direction  which  the  stream  of  consciousness  will  take 
in  any  individual  depends  partly  upon  the  purposes  and  ideas 

•  which  are  operative  within  hfm,  as  well  as  upon  his  past 
.  experience.   And  in  his  criticism  of  finalism  Bergson  does 

not  seem  to  have  realized  how  the  development  of  lan- 
guage has  modified  the  process  of  evolution  in  man,  and 
has  come  to  mean  that  ends  and  ideals  now  play  a  large 
part  in  determining  the  direction  of  that  evolution. 

To  acknowledge  this  difference  between  man  and  the 
other  animals  does  not  necessarily  force  us  to  adopt  the 
view  that  man  is  not  free,  or  that  human  evolution  is  not 
creative  ;  for  the  ends  towards  which  it  is  driving  are  not 
fixed,  but  are  themselves  dynamic.  In  fact,  they  are  indica- 
tions of  a  more  effective  creativeness  and  a  higher  order 
of  self-determination. 

The  developments  of  motor  mechanisms,  of  social  life, 
and  of  language  in  man  are  different  and  external  signs  of 
an  internal  superiority,  which  is  such  as  to  constitute  a 
difference  in  kind  between  man  and  the  rest  of  the  animal 
world.  All  the  other  attempts  to  express  the  creative  im- 
pulse foiled,  at  least  partially.  The  impetus  was  insufficient 
to  overcome  the  obstacles.  The  spring  was  too  feeble,  the 
jump  too  high.   Man  alone  cleared  the  rope. 

Everywhere  else  [says  Bergson]  consciousness  has  remained 
imprisoned.    Every  other  species  corresponds  to  the  arrest  of 
something  which  in  man  succeeded  in  overcoming  resistance  and 
in  expanding  almost  freely,  thus  displaying  itself  in  true  person-  * 
aJities  capable  of  remembering  all  and  willing  all  and  controlling  » 
their  past  and  their  future. 

44 


I 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  NATURE 

Although  man  has  thus  won  a  victory  which  separates 
him  from  the  rest  of  the  organic  world,  and  which  is,  per- 
haps, even  an  earnest  of  his  immortality,  there  always  re- 
mains the  possibility  of  regression.  The  history  of  human 
civilizations  suggests  that  life  may  only  too  easily  become 
mechanized  instead  of  more  abundant.  So  frequent  is  this 
dangerof  the  mechanization  of  life,  that  human  society  has 
evolved  a  social  reprimand  for  those  of  its  members  who 
exhibit  slight  tendencies  in  this  direction.  That  reprimand 
is  laughter. 

In  his  essay  on  The  Meaning  of  the  Comic  Bergson 
works  out  in  detail  this  interpretation  of  laughter  as  a  social 
corrective  for  inelasticity.  The  frock-coated,  top-hatted, 
immaculate  man  who  slips  on  a  piece  of  orange  peel  and 
suddenly  loses  his  dignity,  but  without  being  seriously  hurt, 
is  greeted  by  the  laughter  of  his  fellows.  The  absent- 
minded  man  who  begins  to  dress  for  dinner  and  by  force 
of  habit  finds  himself  in  bed  is  similarly  treated.  The  very 
fat  man  may  strike  his  neighbours  as  comic.  In  fact,  any 
inelasticity  of  body,  or  mind,  or  character  may  be  repri- 
manded by  the  light  hand  of  laughter. 

The  comic  [says  Bergson]  is  that  side  of  a  person  which  reveals 
his  likeness  to  a  thing,  that  aspect  of  human  events  which,  through 
its  peculiar  inelasticity,  conveys  the  impression  of  pure  mechan- 
ism, of  automatism,  of  movement  without  life.  Consequently  it 
expresses  an  individual  or  collective  imperfection  which  calls  for 
an  immediate  corrective.  This  corrective  is  laughter,  a  social  ges- 
ture that  singles  out  and  represses  a  special  kind  of  absent- 
mindedness  in  men  and  in  events.^ 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  humourists  and  comedians  may 
make  use  of  the  laws  which  govern  the  response  of  laughter 
for  other  purposes  than  those  of  social  correction.  The 
cinematograph  film  which  depicts  the  nightmare  struggles 

^  Laughter y  pp.  87-8. 
45 


I! 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

of  a  man  with  objects  which  normally  are  inanimate,  but 
which  on  this  occasion  seem  possessed  of  devils,  amuses  the 
audience  by  exhibiting  to  them  the  man's  foilures  in 
adaptability.  But  all  suggestion  of  a  social  corrective  is 
necessarily  eliminated  by  the  artificiality  of  the  situation. 
Still,  at  its  root,  laughter  seems  to  be  a  means  that  human 
society  has  evolved  of  guarding  the  treasure  of  mobility 
and  freedom,  which  man  alone  has  won  in  the  struggle 
against  necessity. 

The  danger  of  the  mechanization  of  human  life  may, 
however,  be  so  great  or  so  widespread  that  it  cannot  be 
corrected  by  the  light  hand  of  laughter.  Just  as  the  veget- 
able renounced  consciousness  in  becoming  enveloped  in  a 
membrane  of  cellulose,  and  the  mollusc  was  condemned  to 
a  state  of  torpor  by  enclosing  itself  in  protective  armour, 
so  it  sometimes  seems  that  in  these  later  days  the  freedom 
of  man  is  in  deadly  peril  of  being  choked  by  the  wealth  of 
his  material  resources.   "  How  hardly  shall  they  that  trust 
in  riches  enter  into  the  Kingdom  !  " 
'       The  development  of  modern  science  and  modern  indus- 
try has  certainly  meant  a  prodigious  increase  in  man's 
material  resources,  that  is,  in  his  body ;  but  it  has,  at  the 
same  time,  augmented  the  danger  of  mechanization.   It  is 
becoming  increasingly  difficult  for  his  soul  to  dilate  to  the 
dimensions  of  his  body.   He  is  sometimes  in  danger  of  be- 
coming a  slave  to  his  own  machinery,  of  being  caught,  as  in 
a  trap,  in  his  own  systems  of  organization.    In  particular, 
the  group  methods  of  protection  which  he  has  adopted 
sometimes  threaten  to  destroy  the  very  creativeness  to 
which  they  owe  their  origin.   On  such  occasions  life  may 
have  to  make  a  supreme  effort  to  avoid  a  tragic  consumma- 
tion.  It  is  in  terms  of  such  an  explosive  revolt  against  the 
mechanization  of  human  life  that  Bergson  finds  his  inter- 
pretation of  the  significance  of  the  Great  War. 

Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  evolution  the  war  was  a 

46 


MAN'S  PLACE  IN  NATURE 

conflict  between  mechanism  and  life.  On  the  one  side  was 
a  nation  that  had  foiled  in  its  earlier  devotion  to  poetry,  art, 
and  philosophy,  and  had  concentrated  instead  on  material 
success,  and  especially  on  military  and  industrial  efficiency  : 
so  much  so  that  the  people  tended  to  fall  into  the  uni- 
formity of  things  instead  of  raising  themselves  to  the  richer 
and  more  harmonious  diversity  of  persons.  On  this  side, 
then,  were  tendencies  towards  the  mechanization  of  spirit 
But  on  the  other  side,  although  there  was  very  imperfect 
material  organization,  there  were  hopes  of  creating  more 
liberty  and  ideas  of  tolerating  more  variety — sure  evidence 
of  forces  tending,  on  the  whole,  to  the  spiritualization  of 
matter.  On  the  one  side,  Bergson  saw  "  force  spread  out 
on  the  surface  " :  on  the  other,  **  force  in  the  depths." 
On  one  side,  mechanism,  the  manufactured  article  which 
cannot  repair  its  own  injuries:  on  the  other,  life,  the 
power  of  creation,  which  makes  and  remakes  itself  at  every 
instant.  On  one  side,  that  which  uses  itself  up  :  on  the 
other,  that  which  does  not  use  itself  up.  It  is  therefore 
not  surprising  that  to  him  the  issue  was  not  in  doubt 
even  in  19 14.  "  Time,"  he  said,  "  is  on  the  side  of  the 
Allies.  The  issue  of  the  struggle  is  not  doubtful  .  .  . 
Have  no  fear.  "1 

The  permanent  value  of  Bergson's  interpretation  of  the 
war  is  not,  however,  to  be  found  in  this  prophecy  of  victory 
to  the  Allies,  but  rather  in  the  warning  which  his  view  con- 
tains concerning  the  danger  of  mechanization  resulting 
from  undue  interference  with  individual  liberties  by  group 
organizations.  It  is  not  his  indictment  of  modern  Ger- 
many that  is  illuminating,  but  the  feet  that  his  view  thrown 
a  certain  light  on  the  problems  of  the  future.  As  in  organic 
evolution,  so  in  human  society,  the  creative  impulse  or  the 
forces  of  life  are  ever  making  for  more  freedom  and 
variety  ;  but  they  are  still  opposed  by  the  powers  of  neces- 
^  T^  Meaning  of  the  ^tfr(English  translation,  1 9 1 5),  pp.  3  7-8. 

47 


\  I 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

sity  and  death.  It  is  true  that  the  individual,  qua  individual, 
has  evolved  an  organization  which  makes  a  measure  of 
freedom  possible  to  him ;  but  man  is  only  in  process  of 
winning  a  higher  social  freedom. 

There  are  two  problems  that  remain  to  be  solved  :  first, 
what  kind  of  group-organization  is  most  desirable  in  order 
that  there  may  be  the  maximum  of  individual  freedom 
consistent  with  the  well-being  of  the  group  ?  and  secondly, 

,  what  kind  of  interrelation  should  there  be  between  groups, 
particularly  national  groups  ?  Much  thought  will  have  to 
be  expended,  many  experiments  tried,  and  many  sacrifices 
made,  before  working  solutions  of  these  problems  will  be 
obtained.  But  there  are  two  things  that  Bergson  empha- 
sizes that  it  would  be  well  to  keep  in  mind  :   first,  that 

•  there  is  a  creative  urge  within  each  individual  and  that 
individuality  is  a  thing  of  absolute  worth  ;  and  secondly, 

.  that  within  each  living  group  that  has  a  history,  there  is  a 
similar  powerful  drive  which  should  be  respected. 

There  are  hopeful  signs  to-day  that  man  is  preparing 
to  face  these  new  problems,  that  he  is  creating  new  means 
of  ensuring  liberty.  Witness,  for  example,  his  great  experi- 
ment of  the  League  of  Nations.  He  may  fail,  temporarily, 
in  his  high  adventure,  but  the  truth  remains  that  whenever 
he  makes  efforts  to  ensure  more  abundant  life  for  indivi- 
duals or  groups,  he  is  working  in  line  with  the  great  pro- 
cesses of  evolution.  He  is  inspired  by  the  same  creative 
impulse.  And  he  need  have  no  fear,  for  time  is  necessarily 
on  his  side. 


48 


AH 


CHAPTER    VI 

Bergsonianism.    The  Complement  of  Modern  Science 

THE  history  of  philosophy  in  the  past  presents  a 
striking  contrast  to  the  history  of  science.  Modern  • 
science  has  developed  continuously,  almost  steadily, 
for  the  last  two  centuries.    Its  history  has  been  one  long 
romance,  the  romance  of  man's  conquest  of  the  forces  of 
Nature  by  the  discovery  of  her  laws.    Each  worker  in  a 
particular  field  has  been  able  to  enter  into  the  knowledge 
accumulated  by  his  predecessors  *,  and,  by  building  upon  it, 
he  has  perhaps  been  able  to  add  to  it.    But  in  philosophy 
instead  of  continuous  progress  there  has  been  a  perpetual 
return  to  foundations.   Almost  every  philosopher  seems  to 
find  it  necessary  to  criticize  the  findings  of  earlier  workers, 
to  undermine  their  conclusions,  and  to  begin  again  at  the 
beginning.  Consequently,  there  are  almost  as  many  philo- 
sophies as  philosophers.   And  the  question  naturally  arises 
— is  this  impasse  due  to  the  utter  inability  of  the  human 
mind  to  find  the  truth,  to  grasp  the  real,  or  the  thing-in- 
itself  ?    If  so,  then  philosophy  ought  perhaps  to  be  aban- 
doned.   But  can  it  be  abandoned  ?    Every  man  seems  to 
have  a  philosophy  of  life.   Even  if  he  decides  that  it  is  not 
in  the  nature  of  man  to  know  reality,  he  has  a  philosophy. 
It  is  true  that  it  is  negative,  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  philoso- 
phy for  that.  He  holds  that  reality  is  of  such  a  nature  that  • 
it  cannot  be  grasped  by  the  limited  intellect  of  man.   And  ' 
what  is  this  but  a  theory  of  the  nature  of  reality — 2.  - 
philosophy  ?   Are  we,  then,  to  conclude  that  man  is  eter- 
nally condemned  to  philosophize,  to  theorize  on  the  mean- 
ing of  the  universe,  and  yet  has  no  power  adequate  to  the 
task  of  interpretation  ?    Is  he,  in  his  search  for  the  real, 
like  those  maidens  in  Tartarus,  condemned  for  ever  to 
carry  water  in  a  sieve  ? 

According  to  the  French  positivist,  Auguste  Comte,  all 
branches  of  human  knowledge  pass  through  three  stages  of 

49  "> 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

development :  the  theological,  the  metaphysical,  and  the 
positive.  In  the  first  stage,  man  seeks  to  interpret  pheno- 
mena in  terms  of  persons.  For  example,  the  Algonquin 
Indians  explain  eclipses  by  supposing  that  the  sun  is  a  man 
and  the  moon  is  his  wife.  There  is  an  eclipse  of  the  sun 
when  he  holds  in  his  arms  the  little  boy  born  of  the  mar- 
riage ;  and  there  is  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  when  she,  in 
turn,  embraces  the  child.  This  interpretation  belongs  to 
the  first  stage  of  development,  the  theological.  But  as 
human  knowledge  progresses  the  theological  interpreta- 
tion is  superseded  by  the  metaphysical,  where  an  explana- 
tion is  sought  in  terms  of  such  entities  or  "  shadows  of 
spirits  "  as  force,  attraction,  and  affinity.  In  the  third  or 
scientific  stage,  man  gives  up  the  vain  search  for  causes  and 
concentrates  on  the  discovery  of  natural  laws. 

According  to  Comte,  then,  as  man's  knowledge  pro- 
gresses, he  gradually  gives  up  the  quest  of  philosophy  and 
learns  to  content  himself  with  positive  science.  And  the 
march  of  science  has  been  continuous  simply  because  its 
methods  alone  lead  to  positive  and  certain  knowledge. 
The  findings  of  the  theologian  and  metaphysician  are 
over-anthropomorphic,  and  will  gradually  be  eliminated 
in  the  history  of  thought. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  to  what  this  position  might  lead. 
It  drove  Haeckel  to  deny  the  existence  and  personality  of 
God,  and  the  free  will  and  immortality  of  man.  It  led 
Huxley  to  the  sad  belief  that  progress  in  knowledge  would 
inevitably  mean  the  elimination  of  freedom  and  spon- 
taneity from  the  universe. 

Anyone  [he  says]  who  is  acquainted  with  the  history  of  science 
will  admit  that  its  progress  in  all  ages  meant,  and  now  more  than 
ever  means,  the  extension  of  the  province  of  what  we  call  matter 
and  causation,  and  the  concomitant  banishment  from  all  regions 
of  human  thought  of  what  we  call  spirit  and  spontaneity.^ 
1  Huxley:  Collected  Essay s^yoX/i. 
50 


- 


V 


THE  COMPLEMENT  OF  MODERN  SCIENCE 

Indeed,  nineteenth-century  science,  as  a  whole,  tended  • 
to  a  belief  in  universal  mechanism,  to  the  conception  that 
the  universe  is  a  huge  niachine,  governed  by  immutable 
laws  and  therefore  entirely  predictable.    Even  man  him- 
self, the  last  citadel  of  spirit,  would  be  conceived  as  a  kind 
of  marionette,  responding  automatically  to  internal  and  • 
external  stimuli,  every  action  being  predictable  if  only  all 
the  conditions  and  circumstances  could  be  known.    His 
consciousness  would  be  a  kind  of  phosphorescence  or  bye- 
product  resulting  from  certain  complicated  movements  of 
the  molecules  in  the  grey  matter  of  his  brain.   And  there 
would  be  no  room  for  freedom  an)rwhere.    If  the  present 
positions  and  movements  of  all  the  atoms  could  be  known, 
all  that  has  happened  in  the  past,  and  all  that  will  happen  in 
the  future,  could  be  calculated.  There  would  be  no  fact  of 
history,  no  secret  of  the  past,  which  could  not  be  revealed  ; 
and  no  future  event  which  could  not  be  anticipated.   For 
example,  it  would  be  possible  to  calculate  the  number  of 
hairs  that  were  on  the  head  of  Julius  Caesar  when  he 
landed  in  Britain,  and  to  predict  the  precise  conversation 
that  would  be  taking  place  at  any  spot  between  any  two 
people  in  the  year  2000.   The  universe  is  conceived  as 
given  en  bloc,  and  the  apparent  duration  of  things  is  simply 
due  to  the  limitations  of  man's  knowledge.   Such  was  the ' 
doctrine  to  which  nineteenth-century  science  seemed  to  • 

lead. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that,  as  Huxley  said,  this 
view  "  weighed  like  a  nightmare  on  many  of  the  best 
minds  "  of  his  day.  Many  must  have  felt  inclined  to  cry 
out  in  anguish  of  soul : 

Great  God!  I'd  rather  be 
A  Pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn ; 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea. 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn  ; 

51 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea  ; 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathM  horn.* 

And  others  clung  to  the  belief  that  somehow  or  other  the 
.  scientists  had  got  hold  of  things  from  the  wrong  end.  For, 
.  curiously  enough,  even  when  the  universal  mechanist  has 
won  an  argumentative  victory  there  appears  to  be  a  natural 
.  revolt  in  the  minds  of  most  men  against  his  conclusion  ; 
an  intuition,  it  may  be,  that  his  interpretation  is  inade- 
quate ;   a  faith  in  the  spirituality  of  the  universe  and  the 
spontaneity  of  man  which  asks  no  leave  of  intellectualist 
logic.  And  one  of  the  most  serious  problems  that  confronts 
our  age  is  that  of  the  relation  between  the  findings  of 
science  and  these  more  immediate  beliefs  in  the  spiritu- 
.  ality  of  the  universe.   Are  the  two  fundamentally  irrecon- 
cilable ?   Or  can  their  apparent  opposition  be  explained 
away  ? 

Bergson  attacks  the  problem  by  endeavouring  to 
examine  the  aim,  methods,  and  sphere  of  science.  He 
points  out  in  the  first  place  that  the  purpose  of  science  is 
"  not  to  reveal  the  bottom  of  things,  but  to  furnish  us  with 
the  best  means  of  acting  on  them."  Originally  we  only 
think  in  order  to  act,  and  therefore  a  superficial  conscious- 
ness developed  first  in  man.  "  Speculation  is  a  luxury,  but 
action  is  a  necessity  " ;  and  it  is  out  of  this  need  for  action 
that  modern  science  has  arisen.  "  We  are  geometricians," 
says  Bergson,  "only  because  we  are  artisans."  We  are 
•  scientists  concerned  with  finding  regularities  in  nature,  and 
expressing  them  in  convenient  and  symbolic  terms,  be- 
cause we  need  to  find  the  best  means  of  acting  on  our  en- 
vironment. Scientific  knowledge  is,  therefore,  not  entirely 
disinterested,  but  is  rather  relative  to  our  actions.  Science 
proceeds  by  way  of  analysis.  Its  method  is  that  of  the  in- 
tellect, and  all  that  Bergson  has  had  to  say  in  criticism  of 

1  Wordsworth  :  The  World  is  Too  Much  with  Us, 

52 


THE  COMPLEMENT  OF  MODERN  SCIENCE 


the  intellect  applies  to  the  findings  of  science.*  It  ignores 
the  rich  individuality  of  things,  and  is  content  to  classify 
them  according  to  some  aspect  which  it  is  useful  to  con- 
sider. It  proceeds  by  abstraction. 

For  example,  the  intellect  affirms  that  two  and  two 
make  four  ;  and  this  is,  of  course,  true  provided  that  no 
other  fector  than  the  number  relationship  comes  in.  But 
suppose  that  there  is  a  pressure  of  two — say,  two  atmo- 
spheres— in  a  boiler,  and  suppose  that  the  pressure  be  in- 
creased by  another  two.  In  every  specific  case  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  that  the  resulting  pressure  will  be  four. 
There  may  result  a  burst  boiler :  that  is,  there  may  be  a 
change  of  quality  which  disturbs  the  purely  quantitative 
relationship. 

"  It  is  the  last  straw  that  breaks  the  camel's  back." 
In  other  words,  the  effect  of  the  last  straw  may  be  essen- 
tially different  from  the  effect  of  the  last  straw  but  one. 
There  comes  a  point  where  the  result  is  not  merely  addi- 
tive, but  is  different  in  kind. 

The  mathematician,  as  such,  is  not  concerned  with  such 
qualitative  differences  as  broken  backs  and  burst  boilers  : 
he  is  concerned  with  abstract  quantitative  and  spatial  re- 
lationships ;  and  is  consequently  dealing  with  an  artificial 
simplification  of  the  real.  His  symbols  may  be  equivalent 
in  practice,  and  certainly  have  the  advantage  of  being  more 
easily  manipulated,  but  they  do  not  constitute  a  complete, 
nor  a  disinterested,  view  of  reality. 

In  isolating  its  systems,  mechanistic  science  assumes  that 
time  has  no  effect  on  them.  This  is  not  a  serious  distortion 
of  the  facts  so  long  as  the  intellect  is  dealing  with  the  fixed, 
the  static — in  a  word,  with  matter.  But  when  it  comes  to 
deal  with  personality,  life,  and  spirit,  however  useful  its 
devices  may  be  for  practical  purposes,  it  remains  true  that 
the  substitution  of  fixed  symbols  for  changing  realities  is 

*  See  Chapter  I. 

53 


^i 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

fundamentally  unjustifiable  ;  and  the  elimination  of  dura- 
tion is  nothing  less  than  a  positive  distortion  of  reality. 
"  It  is  of  the  essence  of  science,"  says  Bergson,  "  to  mani- 
pulate signs  which  it  substitutes  for  objects  themselves." 
By  the  use  of  fixed  symbols  the  scientist  substitutes  for 
realities  changing  in  time  artificial  recompositions  or 
mosaics  spread  out  in  space.  For  example,  the  belief  in 
universal  mechanism  arises  from  mistaking  such  an  arti- 
ficial system  for  the  changing  reality,  which  it  only  partially 
represents. 

Bergson  is  therefore  led  to  set  limits  to  the  sphere  of 
science.  The  method  of  the  intellect  is  adequate  for  the 
apprehension  of  the  static,  of  matter  ;  but  alone  it  is  in- 
sufficient for  the  appreciation  of  durations.  Like  the  cine- 
matograph operator,  it  takes  views  of  a  moving  scene. 
However  many  snapshots  be  taken,  and  however  snull 
may  be  the  intervals  of  time  between  them,  spread  out  in 
space,  they  would  bear  little  resemblance  to  the  moving 
reality.  It  is  necessary  somehow  or  other  to  restore  the 
movement.  So  it  is  in  the  apprehension  of  a  duration,  of 
that  which  develops  in  time.  Something  more  than  intel- 
lectual analysis  is  needed  :  the  movement  must  be  re- 
introduced, and  the  thing  be  apprehended  in  its  flowing 
through  time.  And  this  is  only  possible  by  the  method  of 
intuition. 

If  man,  then,  wishes  to  gain  a  disinterested  view  of 
reality,  as  it  is  in  itself,  and  not  merely  relatively  to  his 
actions,  he  must  grasp  it  intuitively  sub  specie  durationis. 
There  is,  therefore,  need  for  a  philosophy  to  crown  and 
complete  the  findings  of  science. 

The  mistake  that  many  philosophers  have  made  in  the 
past  is  that,  in  the  main,  they  have  been  using  the  wrong 
method.  They  have  been  seeking  reality  through  the  in- 
tellect, in  fixed  ideas  and  concepts.  They  have  been  taking 
views  of  it  from  the  outside,  or  trying  to  find  it  by  manipu- 

54 


THE  COMPLEMENT  OF  MODERN  SCIENCE 

lating  other  people's  views  of  it,  when  they  ought  to  have 
been  within  it  grasping  it  by  intuition.  It  is  as  though 
those  maidens  in  Tartarus  had  po^essed  pitchers,  but  had 
chosen  to  try  to  carry  the  water  in  sieves.  The  sieve  will  do 
for  pebbles,  but  not  for  the  flowing  water.  The  intellect 
will  do  for  matter,  which  is  static  ;  but  it  will  not  do  for 
the  flowing  reality,  life,  or  spirit.  That  can  only  be  grasped 
by  intuition. 

A  philosophy  which  uses  the  method  of  intuition  is  then 
complementary  to  science.  It  is  influenced  in  its  develop- 
ment by  the  discoveries  of  science.  It  is  a  common  mis- 
conception to  suppose  that  Bergson  attacks  science  in  the 
name  of  immediate  feeling.  What  he  does  advocate  is  a 
continual  return  to  the  intuition  of  concrete  durations  in 
order  to  test  whether  the  concepts,  in  use  for  their  descrip- 
tion, respect  the  natural  articulations  of  reality.  To  him 
philosophy  is  not  in  opposition  to,  but  is  "  the  true  com- 
pletion of  science."  But  it  should  never  be  a  mere  sum- 
mary or  mosaic  of  scientific  knowledge  5  for  duration 
should  be  reintroduced  by  intuition. 

Of  course,  the  findings  of  intuition  are  at  present  very 
incomplete.  But  if  the  new  method  becomes  the  orthodox 
method  of  philosophy,  it  is  surely  not  improbable  that  it 
may  mean  the  rebirth  of  metaphysics,  just  as  the  adoption 
of  the  experimental  method  meant  the  rebirth  of  science. 

Either  I  am  deceived  [says  Bergson]  or  the  future  belongs  to  a 
philosophy  which  .  .  .  will  be  gradually  perfectible,  open  to 
corrections,  to  retouchings,  and  unlimited  amplifications :  a 
philosophy  which  will  no  longer  pretend  to  have  reached  a  solu- 
tion of  mathematical  certainty  (which  mathematical  certainty,  in 
such  a  case,  must  always  be  deceptive).^ 

Already  the  use  of  the  new  method  has  resulted  in  the 
restoration  oi freedom  to  man  and  life  to  the  universe.   It 

*  Life  and  Consciousness,  pp.  2  5-6. 

55 


\  \i. 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

has  shown  that  a  spiritual  interpretation  of  creation  is  not 
inconsistent  with  modern  science,  but  is  rather  its  crown 
and  completion.  It  is  surely  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
this  vision  of  a  reality  which  is  always  active,  creative, 
wherein  the  word  of  power  is  not  law  but  life,  lights  with  its 
splendour  the  patient  discoveries  of  science.  It  lifts  the 
awful  weight  which  determinism  and  universal  mechanism 
had  laid  upon  man's  spirit.  And,  more  than  all, it  frees  him 
from  bondage  to  intellectual ist  logic.  It  shows  him  a  more 
excellent  way  of  seeking  truth  ;  and,  by  so  doing,  it  gives 
him  a  living  spiritual  reality  instead  of  a  post-mortem  dis- 
section of  the  universe. 


PART  II:  BERGSON' S  PHILOSOPHT 
AND  NEW  IDEALS  IN  EDUCATION 


56 


CHAPTER   VII 


- 


I 


The  Revolt  Against  Intellectualism 

ON  its  negative  side  the  philosophy  of  Bergson  is  a 
revolt  against  intellectualism.  Bergson  has  shown, 
perhaps  more  clearly  than  any  other  writer,  that 
the  intellect  of  man,  like  the  instincts  of  ants  and  bees,  or 
the  chlorophyll  function  of  plants,  has  been  evolved  to 
serve  the  purpose  of  life.^  It  is  an  instrument  which  life 
has  used  in  its  struggles  against  necessity.  Life,  then,  con-  • 
tains  and  surpasses  intelligence.  And  first  things  must  be 
put  first.  Intelligence  is  for  life,  and  not  life  for  intelli-  ' 
gence.  We  do  not  live  in  order  to  think  ;  we  think  in 
order  to  live. 

Bergson  goes  further  than  this.  Not  only  has  the  intel- 
lect been  evolved  to  serve  life,  but  it  is  especially  adapted 
for  the  understanding  of  matter,  with  which  life  is  in  con- 
flict. And  therefore,  although  its  findings  may  be  of  great  • 
practical  use,  they  will  never  in  themselves  lead  to  the  • 
comprehension  of  such  durations  as  personality,  life,  and 
spirit.*    The  intelligence  of  man  is  not  disinterested  ;  it  is  • 
cast  in  the  mould  of  action  ;   it  is  turned  towards  matter 
and  away  from  life.    It  is  suitable  for  the  apprehension  of 
the  fixed,  the  static  ;    but  it  is  inadequate  to  the  task  of  • 
appreciating  living  creative  evolutions. 

Thus  Bergson  limits  the  function  of  the  human  intel- 
lect by  two  distinct  lines  of  criticism.  He  shows,  first,  that 
the  intellect  is  the  servant  of  life,  not  its  master  :    and, 
secondly,  that  it  is  characterized  by  a  natural  incompre-  • 
hension  of  life  itself,  the  very  reality  to  which  it  owes  its  • 
origin. 

In  the  educational  world  to-day  there  are  signs  of  a  re-   • 
volt  against  intellectualism,  similar  in  kind  to  Bergson's, 
but  naturally  much  more  vaguely  directed.   It  is  being  in- 
creasingly realized  that  education  in  the  past  has  been  too  • 
1  See  Chapter  IV.         «  See  Chapters  I  and  VI. 

59 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

narrowly  intellectual  :  it  has  too  frequently  been  confused 
with  mere  book-learning.     Even  on  the  theoretical  side 
there  have  been  tendencies,  especially  in  the  early  nine- 
teenth century,  to  lay  too  much  emphasis  on  the  acquiring 
of  book-knowledge  or  on  training  in  the  art  of  thinking, 
and  too  little  on  training  in  the  much  more  important  and 
comprehensive  art  of  living.   In  some  cases,  even  when  the 
.  formation  of  character  has  been  considered  as  the  end  of 
education,  the  salt  of  truth  has  lost  its  savour  by  being  com- 
.  bined  with  the  view  that  virtue  is  knowledge.  For  example, 
Herbart  believed  that  if  a  child  could  be  given  the  right 
ideas  or  a  harmonious  view  of  the  universe  he  would  pos- 
sess the  good  will,  and  therefore  have  the  secret  of  the  art 
of  living.  The  main  business  of  the  teacher  was  therefore 
to  see  that  the  right  ideas  were  supplied  in  the  right  order. 
He  was  to  "  complete  the  circle  of  interests,"  to  give  his 
pupil  **  an  aesthetic  revelation  of  the  world  "  ;  and  con- 
.  duct  would  take  care  of  itself.    But  modern  educationists 
.  are  realizing,  partly  as  a  result  of  their  own  practical  ex- 
,  periences,  and  partly  on  the  evidence  supplied  by  modern 
psychology,  that  there  are  powerful  drives  of  conduct 
below  the  threshold  of  consciousness.  There  are  living  im- 
pulses determining  character  which  are  less  explicit,  but 
which  lie  for  deeper  and  have  more  impulsive  force,  than 
the  iVf^zj  possessed  by  an  individual.    His  inherited  fears 
and  aversions, his  appetites — these  are  the  drives  which  not 
only  determine  conduct,  but  which  aflFect  the  acquisition 
and  evaluation  of  iV^^yj. 

McDougall  and  Shand,  Freud,  Jung  and  the  psycho- 
analysts, all  reinforce  the  Bergsonian  view  that  life  sur- 
passes intelligence,  and  that  there  are  more  living  forces  at 
work  within  an  individual  than  those  of  which  he  is  ex- 
'  plicitly  conscious.  Indeed,  the  unconscious  living  im- 
pulses may  even  be  contradictory  to  the  more  explicit 
ideas  and  beliefs  of  the  individual.  Skill  in  the  art  of  living 


REVOLT  AGAINST  INTELLECTUALISM 

may  therefore  not  follow  upon  merely  intellectual  know- 
ledge, not  even  upon  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  ethics,  and 
still  less  of  Latin  grammar.    That  is  why  Browning's 
grammarian,  even  when  he  moves  us  to  admiration  by  his 
strength  and  devotion,  moves  us  also  to  pity  ;  for  he  made 
a  tragic  mistake  :  he  was  guilty  of  a  great  refusal  when  he 
**  decided  not  to  live^  but  know^   Of  course,  such  know- 
ledge is  valuable,  but  it  is  not  an  end  in  itself.    **  I  have  - 
come,"  said  the  greatest  of  all  teachers,  "that  ye  might  • 
have  ///if,  and  that  ye  might  have  it  more  abundantly."  • 
Not  more  knowledge,  not  even  more  intelligence,  but  • 
more  abundant  life  !  That  is  the  first  aim  of  education. 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  our  traditional  system  of  educa- 
tion— especially  in  its   higher  branches — ^appears  in  the 
main  to  have  been  constructed  on  the  assumption  that  the 
acquiring  of  book-knowledge,  or  at  best  increase  of  intelli- 
gence, is  the  end  of  education.    And  such  a  system,  once 
become  traditional,  dies  hard.    There  are  still  secondary 
schools  which  are  run  as  though  proficiency  in  the  subjects 
taught  and  examination  successes  were  the  be-all  and  end- 
all  of  education.  Examinations  are  certainly  useful  as  tests,  • 
and  they  do  no  harm  to  the  healthy  average  pupil,  provided 
that  they  are  taken  in  his  stride  and  are  regarded  as  a  means  • 
to  an  end.   But  if  they  are  regarded  as  ends  in  themselves,  . 
towards  which  the  course  must  lead,  they  are  calculated  to 
reduce  originality  to  a  minimum,  to  repress  individuality,  • 
and  even  to  lead  to  an  entirely  mistaken  conception  of  life 
itself   Unfortunately  there  are  still  a  few  schools  that  are  - 
prepared  to  devitalize  human  beings  in  order  that  the 
vacant  spaces  on  the  honours  boards  may  be  filled,  and  lists  » 
of  examination  successes  appear  in  the  local  newspapers.  - 
There  are  schools  which  by  the  strict  imposition  of  silence 
rules  during  school  hours  deny  to  boys  and  girls  natural 
opportunities  for  social  intercourse,  and  by  the  extreme 
rigidity  of  the  curriculum  deny  them  opportunities  for 

6i 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

following  their  own  interests  ;  and,  to  crown  all,  by  the 
imposition  of  excessive  homework  deny  their  pupils  the 
fundamental  right  to  live  the  full  family  life.  Those  who 
are  responsible  for  them  forget  that  knowledge  is  the  ser- 
vant of  life,  not  its  master,  and  that  the  best  preparation 
for  life  is  living.  The  boys  and  girls  in  such  schools  are 
not  being  trained  to  livey  but  to  knoWy  and  very  frequently 
to  know  subjects  which  are  so  out  of  relation  to  reality  that 
they  appear  to  the  pupils  to  be  meaningless  and  conse- 
quently are  forgotten  as  soon  as  learned.  Even  the  know- 
ledge that  is  doled  out  to  them  is  dry  bones.  The  only  hope 
in  such  cases  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  individuality  is 
so  hard  to  crush,  and  life  is  so  explosive,  that  many  of  the 
pupils  will  pass  through  such  schools  and  retain  their 
vitality  in  spite  of  their  education.  "  I  am  what  I  am," 
said  Bernard  Shaw,  "  not  because  of  my  education,  but  in 
spite  of  it." 

Notwithstanding  exceptions  of  this  kind,  there  are  signs 
that  there  is  a  growing  revolt  against  a  narrowly  intellec- 
tualist  view  of  education,  not  only  among  educational 
theorists,  but  also  among  practical  teachers.  It  is  being  in- 
creasingly realized  that  education  is  not  synonymous  with 
book-learning.  And  teachers  are  at  last  being  emancipated 
from  slavery  to  the  printing  press. 

The  three  R's  are  taking  their  right  and  subordinate 
place  in  kindergarten  and  infent  school  work.  The  chil- 
dren are  now  allowed  to  play,  to  come  into  contact  with 
one  another  and  with  real  concrete  things,  to  study  natural 
objects,  to  do  and  to  make  things  ;  in  a  word,  they  arc 
allowed  to  live :  and  in  this  scheme  of  life,  reading,  writing, 
and  arithmetic  take  their  natural  and  subordinate  place. 

The  elementary  schools,  too,  have  been  partially  de- 
livered from  that  concentration  upon  mere  book  subjects 
which  characterized  much  of  their  work  in  the  days  of 
"  payment  by  results."    The  introduction  of  handwork 

62 


REVOLT  AGAINST  INTELLECTUALISM 

into  the  curriculum,  and  the  increasing  recognition  of  the 
educational  value  of  the  arts  and  crafts,  have  done  something 
to  free  elementary  education  from  domination  by  the  old 
monkish  ideal.  But  there  is  still  a  long  way  to  go.  We 
have  but  to  compare  the  training  of  the  average  elementary 
school  with  that  given  by  another  educational  agency — 
the  Boy  Scout  movement — in  order  to  realize  how  in- 
tellectualist  and  artificial  much  school  work  still  is.  The 
boy  scout  is  a  member  of  a  community.  He  is  called  to  live 
a  life  with  risks,  adventures,  and  responsibilities.  And  while 
participating  in  that  life  he  comes  into  direct  contact  with 
reality  itself  He  is  not  primarily  concerned  with  subjects : 
that  is,  with  adults'  views  of  reality ;  but  he  is  compelled 
to  face  real  concrete  problems.  Of  course,  he  may  have  to 
seek  knowledge  from  men  or  books  in  order  to  solve  these 
problems  ;  but  he  is  never  forced  to  obtain  it  out  of  rela- 
tion to  life.  The  scout  whose  camp  duty  it  was  to  prepare 
a  rabbit  for  dinner,  and  who,  in  his  ignorance,  started  to 
cut  the  hairs  short  with  a  pair  of  scissors,  had  eventually 
to  seek  knowledge  of  the  scout-master.  But  he  had  felt  the 
pressure  of  the  concrete  problem  before  the  knowledge  was 
vouchsafed  to  him,  and,  consequently,  when  it  was  found 
it  was  full  of  meaning.  To  the  scout,  then,  the  acquiring 
of  knowledge  is  subordinate  to  the  living  of  a  life  and  to  the 
fulfilling  of  responsibilities  towards  a  community.  What- 
ever criticisms  may  be  urged  against  the  movement,  this, 
at  least,  is  true :  that  it  is  based  on  the  sound  educational 
principle  that  the  best  preparation  for  life  is  participation  in 
life — a  principle  which  so  far  has  been  very  imperfectly 
realized  in  the  conventional  school  system. 

If  this  principle  had  been  recognized,  school  work  would 
not  have  been  so  artificial  and  so  meaningless  as  it  fre- 
quently has  been  in  the  past.  We  should  have  been  saved 
from  placing  our  snapshots  of  reality  between  the  minds  of 
the  children  and  reality  itself  We  should  have  been  forced 

63 


I 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

to  realize  the  futility  of  spending  time  and  energy  in  at- 
tempting to  teach  subjects  which  have  no  relation  to  the 
living  experiences  of  the  learners.  We  should  have  been 
.  saved  from  imagining  that  education  consists  in  the  mere 
■  learning  of  subjects — such  as  Geography,  History,  Latin, 
and  Mathematics — which  frequently  are  so  artificially 
divided  into  watertight  compartments  that  they  appear  to 
the  learner  to  have  no  bearing  upon  life.  "  What  is  the 
Panama  ? "  asked  an  inspector  after  he  had  given  a  class 
an  arithmetical  problem  to  solve,  involving  the  question  of 
exports  to  the  Panama.  And  he  was  met  with  blank  looks 
and  obtained  no  reply.  "  It's  geography,"  interposed  the 
teacher,  and  immediately  hands  shot  up  from  all  quarters 
of  the  class.  The  meaningless  mechanically  acquired  know- 
ledge was  available  when  the  arithmetic  compartment  was 
left  and  the  geography  compartment  entered.  Such  know- 
ledge is  mere  parrot  knowledge,  and  serves  rather  to 
deaden  the  mind  than  to  illuminate  the  problems  of  life. 
This  is  why  the  American  educationist,  Dewey,  insists 
that  the  division  of  the  curriculum  into  subjects)  is  only 
justified  if  the  pupil  can  see  the  relation  of  each  subject  to 
life  ;  and  he  advocates  a  system  of  early  education  in  which 
the  subjects  separate  out  from,  and  centre  round,  concrete 
occupations. 

An  interesting  experiment  has  recently  been  tried  in 
this  direction  by  Miss  Isabel  Fry.^  Miss  Fry  has  for  some 
years  successfully  run  what  might  be  termed  a  farm 
boarding-school.  The  school  carries  on  the  business  of 
dairy  farming,  and  actually  supplies  the  neighbourhood 
in  which  it  is  situated  with  milk,  butter,  and  eggs.  The 
practical  occupations  in  which  the  children  engage  are, 
roughly,  those  of  distributing  the  milk,  separating  it  for 
butter,  making  butter,  feeding  the  hens  and  farm  animals, 

^  See  Report  of  the  Conference  on  New  Ideals  in  Education 
(191 8),  pp.  127-130. 

64 


REVOLT  AGAINST  INTELLECTUALISM 

and  doing  housework  and  gardening.  Time  is  also  set  apart 
for  more  cultural  studies  :  but  the  main  idea  behind  the 
experiment  is  that,  first  of  all,  children  should  be  allowed 
to  live  healthy,  purposive  lives.  In  the  fulfilment  of 
their  practical  duties  under  the  guidance  of  sympathetic 
teachers  they  will,  of  course,  acquire  knowledge — know- 
ledge of  persons,  of  animals,  of  natural  processes,  of  scienti- 
fic facts,  and  of  number  relationships.  For  example,  they 
will  learn  to  be  accurate  and  to  keep  accounts  through 
measuring  and  selling  the  milk.  But  the  acquiring  of  know- 
ledge is  of  secondary  importance.  The  pupils  are  not  being 
trained  to  be  farmers,  but  rather  to  prepare  themselves  for 
their  future  responsibilities  by  living,  and  contributing  to, 
a  true  purposive  community  life.  They  are  not  primarily 
engaged  in  learning  subjects,  or  in  studying  other  men's 
views  of  reality.  They  do  not  stand  aside  from  the  current 
of  life,  playing  with  counters  and  symbols.  They  are  face 
to  face  with  reality  itself,  and  consequently  they  have  op- 
portunities of  learning  to  live. 

The  revolt  against  the  division  of  the  curriculum  into 
subjects  of  study  has  been  carried  to  extremes  by  some 
modern  thinkers,  who  have  failed  to  realize  that  different 
degrees  of  abstraction  are  suited  to  different  stages  of 
development.  It  will  probably  be  generally  recognized  that 
there  comes  a  time  in  the  history  of  most  boys  and  girls 
when  the  systematic  study  of  subjects  is  desirable,  provided 
that  those  subjects  are  not  out  of  relation  to  life.  Indeed, 
the  division  into  subjects  is  suited  to  the  growing  powers 
of  abstraction  of  the  pupils  and  does  not  necessarily  involve 
unreality.  At  secondary  school  age,  boys  and  girls  are 
naturally  able  to  make  wider  excursions  from  real  concrete 
objects  without  losing  connection  with  them;  and,  conse- 
quently any  attempt  to  make  their  training  occupational 
will  not  lead  to  more,  but  to  less,  abundant  life.  At  this 
stage,  intellectual  interests  should  be  broadened  and  the 

65  « 


II 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

work  become  more  systematic  ;  but  the  training  of  the 
intelligence  should  still  always  be  for  the  sake  of  fullness  of 
h*fe.  Bergson  never  denies  the  value  of  intelligence  for  life. 
And  any  system  of  education  founded  on  the  principles 
of  his  philosophy  would  have  to  arrange  for  opportunities 
for  the  full  intellectual  development  of  each  individual. 
But  it  would  not  have  to  stop  there  j  for  life  surpasses  in- 
telligence. 

Fortunately,  just  as  the  universities  have  been  saved 
from  the  full  eflFects  of  their  over-intellectualist  tradition 
by  the  fact  that  many  of  their  students  are  in  residence, 
and  therefore  have  opportunities  to  evolve  a  community 
life  of  their  own,  so  the  secondary  schools  are  beginning  to 
be  delivered  from  slavery  to  the  examination  bogey  by  the 
increasing  emphasis  which  is  being  placed  on  social  life.  In 
many  modern  secondary  schools  some  measure  of  self- 
government  has  been  given  to  the  pupils.  They  are  allowed 
to  be  responsible  for  the  making  of  rules  and  the  main- 
tenance of  order  within  the  community.  They  manage 
the  games,  the  clubs,  the  charities,  the  Christmas  parties, 
and  other  social  functions  of  the  school.  In  short,  they 
have  sonrie  of  the  privileges  and  responsibilities  of  com- 
munity life  :  they  are  being  taught  to  live. 

Of  course,  much  remains  to  be  done.  Very  frequently, 
even  in  progressive  schools,  there  is  too  wide  a  gap  between 
the  social  life  of  the  pupils  and  their  systematic  class-room 
training.  The  social  functions  of  a  school  often  appear  to 
be  outside  its  main  business.  But  the  playing  of  games  and 
the  introduction  of  group  work  in  many  subjects  have 
made  it  possible  for  a  very  real  social  training  to  be  given 
during  school  hours.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  intro- 
duction of  handwork  into  the  ordinary  curriculum,  and  the 
use  of  the  drama  in  the  teaching  of  literature  and  history 
have  made  it  possible  for  class-room  work  to  minister 
directly  to  a  full  community  life.    For  example,  if  the 

66 


REVOLT  AGAINST  INTELLECTUALISM 

pupils  of  a  school  are  giving  an  entertainment  it  is  easy  to 
arrange  for  the  programmes  to  be  made  by  the  art  class, 
and  the  cakes  in  the  cookery  lesson  :  it  is  possible  for  the 
play  that  is  being  presented  by  any  form  to  have  a  bearing 
on  its  systematic  literary  or  historical  work,  and  for  the 
properties  employed  in  its  production  to  be  made  during  the 
time  devoted  to  handwork. 

But  even  if  efforts  of  this  kind  are  made  to  reduce  the 
gap  between  social  life  and  systematic  study,  two  existing 
conditions  will  still  stand  in  the  way  of  the  complete 
deliverance  of  modern  secondary  school  work  from  un- 
reality :  first,  that  of  the  comparative  rigidity  of  the  time- 
table, and  secondly,  that  of  the  artificiality  of  the  curri- 
culum. The  time-tables  of  most  schools,  both  elementary 
and  secondary,  are  not  elastic  enough  to  meet  the  needs  of  a 
living  community,  or  those  of  living  individuals.  And,  in 
addition,  secondary  school  teachers  have  not  yet  solved  the 
problem  of  the  choice  of  subjects  of  study  and  of  the  rela- 
tion that  should  exist  between  them.  They  are  suffering 
both  from  an  over-burdened  curriculum  and  from  over- 
specialization.  And,  consequently,  the  subjects  studied  fre- 
quently appear  to  the  pupils  to  have  no  bearing  upon  life. 
They  are  dead  and  meaningless ;  they  throw  no  light 
upon  the  nature  of  reality  ;  they  give  no  guidance  in  the 
art  of  living. 

We  shall  try  to  show  later  how  the  more  positive  sides 
of  Bergson's  thought,  particularly  his  view  of  human 
personality  and  his  doctrine  of  intuition,  help  us  towards  a 
solution  of  these  and  other  fundamental  problems.   So  far, 
the  discussion  has  been  limited  to  the  negative  side  ;  but  it  • 
has  already  become  clear  that  Bergson's  philosophy  em-  * 
phasizes  the  need  for  working  out  a  broader  conception  of  • 
education,  in  which  the  acquiring  of  book-knowledge  and   • 
the  training  of  the  intellect  shall  be  subordinated  to  train-  ' 
ing  in  the  art  of  living.  Each  individual  must  be  educated 

67 


I 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

to  live  ;  not  merely  to  gain  a  livelihood,  but  to  attain  that 
fullness  of  life  which  becomes  possible  in  so  far  as  he  suc- 
ceeds in  expanding  freely  and  in  entering  into  right  re- 
lationships with  reality  itself. 


68 


CHAPTER    VIII 


The  Development  of  the  Individual  and  the  Problem 

of  School  Government 

IF  it  be  admitted  that  the  chief  aim  of  education  is  that 
of  more  abundant  life  for  each  individual,  it  might  be 
expected  that  Bergson's  philosophy,  which  is  essen- 
tially a  philosophy  of  life,  would  throw  light  on  educational 
problems.  It  is,  of  course,  true  that  no  mere  theory  of  life 
will  ever  lead  to  the  solution  of  the  many  practical  educa- 
tional problems  with  which  the  modern  world  is  con- 
fronted. There  is,  and  will  be,  a  continual  need  for  direct 
experiment.  But  from  a  general  theory  of  life  there  can  be 
deduced  principles  which  will  give  guidance  in  the  choice 
and  carrying  out  of  experiments,  and  will  also  help  to  bring 
harmony  into  educational  practice. 

Bergson's  view  of  human  personality  is  particularly  il- 
luminating on  this  score.  He  holds  that  in  each  living 
organism  there  is  an  Slan  vital  which  is  similar  to,  and 
derived  from,  that  dynamic  urge  which  expresses  itself  in 
the  whole  process  of  the  evolution  of  life.^  And  he  shows 
that  human  consciousness  is  a  dynamic  flux,  ever  enrich- 
ing itself  by  experience,  gathering  up  the  past,  and  driving 
towards  the  future.*  It  is  free  and  creative  when  it  is  most 
itself  In  every  individual,  then,  there  is  a  supra-mechani- 
cal drive  which  directs  his  development  from  within ;  and 
consequently,  if  he  is  ever  to  realize  himself  fully,  he  must 
be  allowed  freedom  to  expand  and  opportunities  to  create. 

At  the  outset,  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that  this  view — 
that  there  is  a  life  urge  within  each  individual — finds  con- 
siderable support  among  modern  psychologists.  The  mind 
of  man  is  no  longer  regarded  as  a  passive  receptacle  of  ideas 
or  a  blank  sheet  on  which  impressions  can  be  made  as  upon 
wax.    It  is  generally  recognized  that  even  from  the  be- 

*  See  Chapter  IV,  pp.  33-6.     *  See  Chapter  III,  pp.  26-32. 

69 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

ginning  there  are  powerful  and  dynamic  forces  at  work 
directing  its  development  from  within. 

According  to  McDougall,^  every  individual  starts  with 
a  certain  number  of  ready-made  instincts,  that  is,  certain 
inherited  tendencies  to  know  certain  objects,  to  feel  emo- 
tions in  regard  to  them,  and  to  react  accordingly.    For 
example,  a  tiny  child  will  sometimes  run  and  hide  when  he 
sees  a  bear  for  the  first  time.  This  impulse  is  not  the  result 
of  experience.    He  has  had  no  previous  experience  of  the 
animal  in  question.   But  there  is  within  him  an  inherited 
tendency  to  notice  the  bear,  to  feel  fear  in  its  presence,  and 
to  take  refuge  in  flight.   It  is  these  instincts,  such  as  curio- 
,  sity,  pugnacity,  self-assertion,  self-abasement,  and  imita- 
^  tion,  which  determine  the  development  of  individuals  ; 
and  McDougall  does  not  hesitate  to  regard  them  as  so 
'  many  forms  of  the  life  urge. 

In  addition  to  the  instincts,  Drever"  recognizes  a  class 
of  simpler  dynamic  forces  within  the  human  mind.  These 
are  the  appetites,  of  which  the  most  important  are  hunger, 
.  thirst,  the  desire  for  sleep,  and  the  sexual  appetite.  And  it 
is  these,  with  the  instincts,  which  at  the  early  stages 
direct  and  control  conduct. 

The  psychology  of  the  nineteenth  century  had  much  to 
.  say  of  sensations  and  impressions,  but  it  said  little  about 
appetites  and  instincts.    We  are  only  just  beginning  to 
.  understand  how  these  primitive  impulsive  forces  direct  the 
.  attention,  and,  consequently,  partially  control  the  acquiring 
.  of  experience.    The  mind  does  not  receive  impressions 
.  passively.    It  selects  and  discriminates,  attending  to  some 
,  things  in  the  environment  to  the  exclusion  of  others.   And 
it  is  the  appetites  and  instincts  that  in  the  early  stages  deter- 
mine this  selection.    They  are  the  driving  forces  of  the 
mind. 

1  W.  McDougall :  Social  Psychology  (1908). 
•  J.  Drever  :  Instinct  in  Man  (1917)- 

70 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SCHOOL  GOVERNMENT 

Further,  it  is  doubtful  whether  these  dynamic  forces 
'  cease  to  exist  :ven  if  they  are  denied  expression.    Freud, 
Jung  and  other  psycho-analysts  maintain  that  if  these  im- 
pulses are  repressed  they  may  cease  to  exist  to  conscious- 
ness, but  they  remain  in  the  realm  of  the  unconscious, 
surreptitiously  influencing  thought  and  conduct  and  only 
revealing  themselves  directly  in  the  dream-life  of  the  in- 
dividual.    It  is  true  that  whereas  Freud  is  satisfied  with  a  . 
'  mechanistic  interpretation  of  human  personality,  Jung  • 
•  definitely  accepts  the  Bergsonian  position.  But,  in  general, 
the  work  of  psycho-analysts  has  served  to  show  that  what- 
ever else  the  mind  of  man  is,  it  is  not  a  mere  fabrication  of  * 
ideas.    It  cannot  be  built  up  from  outside  without  regard  . 
to  its  own  living  impulses.  If  it  is  to  grow  in  health  it  must  . 
develop  from  within. 

There  are  signs  that  the  educational  world,  too,  is  be-  > 
ginning  to  realize  that  the  development  of  each  individual 
should  be  allowed  to  come  from  within,  and  that  the  life 
urge  that  is  at  work  within  each  child  should  be  respected.  . 

"  Freedom  for  each  to  conduct  life's  adventure  in  his 
own  way  and  to  make  the  best  he  can  of  it,"  says  Professor 
Nunn,  "  is  the  one  universal  ideal  sanctioned  by  nature 
and  approved  by  reason."^ 

On  all  sides  it  is  being  recognized  that  education 

Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  the  imprisoned  splendour  may  escape, 
Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  light 
Supposed  to  be  without.* 

The  real  difliculty  arises  when  educationists  begin  to 
try  to  put  this  principle  into  practice.  The  conditions 
under  which  they  work  and  the  methods  employed  by 

1  Nunn:   Education:  its  Data  and  First  Principles  (1920), 


p.  9. 

2  Browning :  Paracelsus. 


I 

I 
If 


71 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

many  parents  in  the  management  of  their  children  at  first 
mih'tate  against  the  success  of  any  experiments  in  self- 
education.    If  parents  could  only  be  persuaded  that  from 
the  beginning  the  life  urge  of  each  individual  child  should 
be  respected,  it  would  make  it  easier  for  teachers  to  act  on 
the  same  principle.  But  few  mothers  can  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  treat  the  individual  as  a  type.  The  baby  is  propped 
up  at  a  certain  age  because  it  "  ought  "  then  to  be  sitting 
up.  Yet  it  is  obvious  that  if  it  were  strong  enough  it  would 
>   get  up  itself  When  all  due  preparations  have  been  made  by 
f  nature  the  impulse  will  come  from  within  ;   and  to  fore- 
•   stall  this  life  urge,  even  in  a  simple  case  of  this  kind,  is  to 
%   put  an  unnecessary  strain  on  the  child.    Similarly,  to  im- 
pede the  natural  movements  of  a  little  child  by  tight 
clothing,  or  by  any  other  means,  is  a  case  of  repression  of 
the  life  urge,  and  is  calculated  to  have  a  devitalizing  effect 
upon  him.  What  is  true  of  physical  growth  is  equally  true 
^  of  mental  development.  The  life  urge  should  be  respected, 
»  neither  being  forestalled  nor  repressed. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  contribution  that  Dr.  Montessori 
has  made  to  modern  education  is  that  she  has  shown  that 
this  principle  can  be  applied  to  the  problem  of  infant 
school  work  with  notable  results.  She  has  invented  a  range 
of  "  didactic  apparatus,"  which  the  children  are  allowed  to 
use  freely.  By  their  own  efforts  to  perform  the  tasks  in- 
volved in  the  use  of  the  apparatus  they  are  gradually  led  to 
gain  control  of  their  bodies  and  to  use  their  senses  with  dis- 
crimination. They  also  teach  themselves  the  elementary 
arts  of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic.  They  are  always 
allowed  to  choose  their  own  tasks  and  to  work  at  their  own 
rate  ;  and  they  move  about  the  room  freely.  They  are 
under  the  supervision  of  a  teacher,  who  gives  guidance 
when  it  is  required  but  whose  aim  it  is  to  reduce  inter- 
ference with  individual  development  to  a  minimum.  The 
children  are  not  all  expected  to  have  the  same  interests, 

7^ 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SCHOOL  GOVERNMENT 

nor  to  progress  at  the  same  rate  along  the  same  paths. 
Each  is  allowed  to  develop  from  within. 

Of  course,  there  is  discipline.  The  apparatus  itself  is 
disciplinary  ;  but  the  important  point  to  notice  is  that  each 
child  has  a  real,  though  limited,  choice  of  occupations  ; 
and,  therefore,  when  the  choice  is  made  the  discipline  is 
self-imposed.  That  is  why  it  is  so  effective.  But  side  by 
side  with  the  self-imposed  discipline  of  work  there  is  the 
social  discipline  that  comes  from  being  allowed  to  hold 
intercourse  and  to  co-operate  freely  with  others.  Indeed, 
the  striking  thing  about  a  well-run  Montessori  school  is  the 
atmosphere  of  calm  orderliness  which  prevails.  Each  child 
is  busy  with  self-chosen  tasks  ;  his  life  urge  is  finding  ex- 
pression in  work  and  social  life.  There  is  no  bottling  up  of 
explosive  forces,  and  consequently  there  is  no  volcanic 
eruption  when  the  teacher  is  called  away. 

But  it  may  be  argued  that  children  will  be  sure  to  idle 
and  fritter  away  their  time  if  they  are  allowed  so  much 
freedom.  It  is  generally  agreed  by  observers  that  "  Mon- 
tessori "  children  have  greater  initiative  and  power  of  con- 
centration than  children  educated  on  the  older  methods. 
More  than  this.  Dr.  Kimmins  has  been  able  to  prove  by 
experiment  that  their  standard  of  work  in  actual  subjects, 
such  as  reading,  arithmetic,  and  composition,  compares 
favourably  with  that  of  children  of  the  same  age  brought 
up  on  traditional  infant  school  lines.^  At  first  this  seems 
remarkable.  But  adult  experience  goes  to  show  that  an 
individual  has  for  more  patience  and  power  of  concentra- 
tion in  the  performance  of  a  task  if  that  task  is  of  his  own 
choosing.  The  great  red-letter  days  in  an  individual's  in- 
tellectual life  are  always  those  on  which  he  ventures  to 
follow  his  own  living  impulses.    So  it  is  with  children. 

^  Kimmins :  Some  Recent  Montessori  Experiments  in  England 
{Report  of  the  Conference  on  New  I  deals  in  Education,  191  5),  pp. 
54-68. 

73 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

There  will  be  periods  of  waiting,  but  real  development 
always  comes  from  within. 

Many  experiments  on  similar  principles  are  now  being 
made  with  older  children.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  take  re- 
presentative examples.  Perhaps  one  of  the  most  interesting 
is  that  of  Mr.  E.  F.  O'Neill  at  Outwood  and  Kearsley 
Elementary  School,  in  Lancashire.  In  this  school  there  is 
very  little  class-teaching.  The  children  work  as  individuals 
and  not  as  units  in  a  class.  They  are  not  confined  to  one 
room,  but  old  and  young  have  the  run  of  the  whole  school, 
including  the  workshop,  the  reading-room,  the  central 
hall  (for  dancing  and  singing),  and  the  class-rooms.  The 
children  are  divided  among  the  teachers,  who  act  as  their 
tutors,  keeping  a  record  of  their  work  and  giving  guidance 
where  necessary.  This  division  is  not  made  entirely  ac- 
cording to  their  age,  but  partly  according  to  their  desires. 
They  do  not  work  by  a  fixed  time-table.  Indeed,  there  is 
only  a  minimum  of  compulsory  work.  Each  child  chooses 
what  subjects  he  will  study,  plans  his  work  in  advance,  and 
perhaps  makes  a  work-table  for  himself  In  any  case,  he 
keeps  a  record  of  work  accomplished  ;  but  he  is  always 
free  to  use  his  time  in  his  own  way.  He  can  seize  the  op- 
portunity to  do  a  certain  kind  of  work  when  he  feels  like 
it ;  and  in  this  way  he  accomplishes  better  work  than  he 
would  if  he  were  forced  to  do  it  at  a  certain  fixed  time  and 
to  leave  off  at  another  fixed  time. 

There  are  no  silence  rules,  and  the  children  are  not  for- 
bidden to  help  one  another  in  their  work.  They  arrange 
tea  parties  and  concerts,  form  committees  for  various  ob- 
jects, and  thus  live  a  real  life  in  school.  They  contribute  to 
the  common  good  by  making  books  or  school  furniture. 
Many  of  them  are  elected  to  offices  involving  certain 
definite  responsibilities,  such  as  looking  after  the  rabbits, 
checking  the  newspapers  and  periodicals,  or  acting  as 
"  lenders  "  of  the  different  properties  that  can  be  borrowed. 

74 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SCHOOL  GOVERNMENT 

In  general,  side  by  side  with  opportunities  for  following 
their  own  interests,  most  of  the  children  have  real  social 
responsibilities.^ 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  dangers  will  beset  an  experi- 
ment of  this  kind.  In  the  first  place,  the  task  that  is  imposed  • 
on  the  teachers  is  a  very  difficult  one.  The  children  will 
waste  time,  and  become  aimless  or,  perhaps,  even  bored, 
unless  by  means  of  careful  records  or  by  sympathetic  in- 
sight their  tutors  are  able  to  give  each  individual  the  exact 
guidance  that  is  needed.  A  child  is  not  even  on  the  way  to 
the  attainment  of  real  freedom  until  he  can  be  persuaded  to 
discipline  himself  and  to  hold  fast  to  his  considered  purposes. 
And  to  use  moral  suasion,  at  the  right  time  and  in  the 
right  way,  not  only  requires  devotion  and  patience,  but  also 
unusual  psychological  insight  on  the  part  of  each  teacher. 

In  the  second  place,  in  desiring  to  remove  the  positively 
repressive  influences  that  exist  under  the  traditional 
system  and  which  frequently  prevent  the  free  development 
of  the  individual,  it  is  perilously  easy  to  forget  that  certain 
sides  of  a  child's  nature  may  remain  undeveloped,  not  only 
through  active  repression,  but  also  through  lack  of  op- 
portunity for  expression.  Just  as  a  plant  will  not  grow 
freely  in  the  absence  of  sunshine,  so  a  child  may  renmin  un- 
developed owing  to  certain  omissions  in  his  environment. 
For  example,  if  there  is  an  absence  of  beauty,  order,  and 
harmony  in  his  surroundings,  or  if  there  are  no  oppor- 
tunities for  the  practice  of  silence  in  his  school,  he  may  be 
warped  spiritually.  But,  with  the  possible  single  exception 
of  Dr.  Montessori,  the  newer  experimenters  do  not  appear 
to  have  realized  this,  and  they  have  therefore  not  suffi- 
ciently considered  what  kind  of  surroundings  and  material 
are  necessary  to  minister  to  all  the  potential  impulses  with- 
in the  child.   If  the  individual  is  to  be  left  free  to  respond  to 

1  The  above  description  applied  to  the  school  in  1920,  but  I 
understand  that  certain  alterations  have  since  been  made. 

75 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

•   his  environment,  it  becomes  imperative  that  the  environ- 
.  ment  itself  should  be  controlled  so  that  it  presents  oppor- 
tunities for  the  satisfaction  of  all  human  needs— physical, 
mental,  and  spiritual. 

Perhaps  the  best  known  experiment  in  which  these  new 
views  are  specially  applied  to  the  problem  of  school  govern- 
ment is  that  of  Mr.  Homer  Lane's  "Little  Common- 
wealth."   The  boys  and  girls  were  juvenile  delinquents, 
and  were  sent  to  Mr.  Lane  to  be  re-educated.  On  arriving 
at  the  farm  in  Dorsetshire,  and  becoming  citizens  of  the 
"  Commonwealth,"  they  were  given  complete  freedom  to 
govern  themselves.    They  lived  as  a  self-contained  com- 
munity, working  on  the  farm  for  their  living,  receiving 
payment  for  their  work,  and  shouldering  responsibilities 
for  the  upkeep  of  the  "  Commonwealth."   If  any  of  their 
number  did  not  work  he  was  a  burden  to  the  rest  of  the 
community— he  was  on  the  rates.   Thev  made  their  own 
laws  and  administered  them.    Mr.  Lane'acted  throughout  • 
on  the  belief  that  anti-social  behaviour  is  usually  the  result 
of  the  continued  repression  of  the  vital  energy,  or  the  life  • 
urge,  of  an  individual  ;  and  that  the  first  condition  of  re- 
education is  that  there  should  be  scope  given  to  this  abound- 
ing energy.    His  experiment  showed  that  freedom  with 
social  responsibility  has  power  to  regenerate  individuals 
who  have  previously  been  at  variance  with  society  and  with 
their  own  higher  selves. 

Similar  experiments  in  self-government  are  to-day  being 
tried  in  schools  of  diflPerent  types.  Mr.  J.  H.  Simpson,  in 
his  book  entitled  Jn  Jdventure  in  Education,  has  described 
one  with  a  form  in  a  public  school.  The  boys  in  his  class 
were  gradually  encouraged  to  take  over  the  functions  of 
government.  They  made  their  own  laws  and  administered 
them.  A  certain  number  of  periods  were  set  aside  every 
week  for  a  form  court,  in  which  offenders  against  the  law 
were  tried  by  their  peers. 

76 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SCHOOL  GOVERNMENT 

The  main  difficulty  that  was  encountered  in  the  work- 
ing out  of  this  experiment  was  due  to  a  fact  to  which  we 
have  previously  drawn  attention,  namely,  that  the  routine 
work  of  a  secondary  school  is  artificially  separated  from  its 
social  life.  The  members  of  the  "  Little  Commonwealth  " 
were  engaged  in  work  the  usefulness  of  which  was  obvious. 
Anyone  who  failed  to  do  his  share  really  interfered  with 
the  community  life,  and  consequently  was  an  offender  in 
the  eyes  of  his  companions.  But  a  boy  who  fails  to  learn 
his  Latin  grammar  is  not  anti-social  in  the  eyes  of  his  fellow 
pupils.  It  is  not  to  be  expected,  therefore,  that  they  will 
naturally  consider  his  omission  a  serious  one. 

In  order  to  obviate  this  difficulty  Mr.  Simpson  divided 
his  form  into  two  sections,  introduced  a  system  of  marks, 
and  pitted  one  section  against  the  other.  Any  boy  who 
neglected  his  work  was  thus  letting  his  side  down  ;  and 
his  omission  became  an  offence  against  the  community. 
This  device,  ingenious  as  it  is,  clearly  shows  that  there  is 
something  the  matter  with  the  secondary  school  curricu- 
lum. There  should  not  be  this  great  gap  between  school 
work  and  real  life.  It  would  be  wise,  therefore,  at  the 
outset  to  notice  that  in  attempting  to  adopt  less  repressive 
methods  of  government  in  the  secondary  school  more  may 
be  involved  than  the  question  of  discipline.  The  problems 
of  the  curriculum  and  of  the  methods  to  be  employed  in 
teaching  may  also  have  to  be  reconsidered. 

Although  there  are  many  educational  experiments  em- 
bodying the  principle  that  the  life  urge  of  each  individual 
should  be  respected,  there  is  still  a  great  need  for  a  careful 
analysis  of  the  idea  of  freedom  in  education.  It  has  already 
become  apparent  from  the  experiments  described  that  the 
modern  apostles  of  freedom  do  not  mean  by  it  doing  what 
one  pleases  at  any  moment.  Dr.  Montessori  controls  the 
environment  of  her  pupils  so  that  only  a  certain  number  of 
activities  are  possible.   Mr.  O'Neill  uses  moral  suasion  in 

77 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

Cases  where  there  are  serious  omissions  in  the  h'st  of  chosen 
subjects  of  study  ;  and  he  expects  every  individual  to  carry 
out  his  own  plan  of  work.  The  pupil  is  not  to  give  ex- 
.  pression  to  every  passing  whim,  but  is  to  hold  fast  to  his 
considered  purposes. 

Bergson's  position  would  lead  us  to  distinguish  between 
three  levels  of  freedom  or,  at  least,  three  meanings  that  are 
attached  to  the  term  freedom.   There  is,  first  of  all,  that 
kind  oi  individual  freedom  of  which  Rousseau  imperfectly 
conceived.    A  child  should  be  free  to  follow  his  own 
deepest  impulses.    He  is  not,  of  course,  to  do  ever)rthing  he 
wishes,  nor  to  have  everything  he  wants.    There  are 
momentary  passing  desires  which  are  superficial  and,  per- 
haps, even  alien  to  his  real  nature  :   and,  as  Bergson  has 
•  clearly  shown,  actions  that  result  from  these  are  not  free^ 
but  caused.^  But  there  are  also  drives  which  issue  from  the 
life  urge  itself,  and  it  is  these  which  must  be  allowed  free 
expression.    This  does  not  mean  that  there  is  to  be  no 
discipline.   To  work  steadily  for  the  fulfilment  of  a  con- 
sidered purpose,  to  follow  the  life  urge  within  in  the  face  of 
superficial  attractions  without,  which  promise  quicker  re- 
turns, is  a  discipline.    And  if  children  are  not  encouraged 
to  concentrate  on  the  fulfilment  of  their  deepest  living  im- 
pulses they  may  remain  slaves  to  their  own  wayward  de- 
sires, and  therefore  never  attain  a  large  measure  of  in- 
dividual freedom.  Such  discipline,  however,  to  be  effective 
must  be  self-imposed. 

This  conception  of  freedom  would  be  sufficient  if  the 
individual  were  absolutely  self-contained.  But,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  individual  is  a  member  of  society,  and,  indeed, 
only  attains  to  self-consciousness  as  a  member  of  society. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  hum.an  species  occupies  the  place  it 
does  in  evolution  partly  became  man  became  socialized." 
And  it  is  not  unlikely  that  man  i»  ^vf  in  process  of  win- 

*  See  Chapter  III,  pp.  30-1.         •  $4^  Chapter  V,  p.  43. 

"  -  .  78 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SCHOOL  GOVERNMENT 

ning  a  higher  social  freedom  which  will  eventually  surpass 
and  contain  individual  freedom.^  Indeed,  the  two  are  not 
inconsistent.    Man  inherits  social,  as  well  as  egoistic,  in-  - 
stincts  ;   and  his  life  urge  will  never  find  full  expression  . 
if  he  remains  a  narrow  individualist.   The  miser  is  a  re-  . 
pressed  individual.   His  material  environment  has  been  too 
much  for  him,  and  has  partially  succeeded  in  quenching  the  • 
living  forces  within.   But  the  social  worker  who  gives  all 
for  society  is  himself  expanding  freely. 

Rousseau  supposed  that  Emile  was  free  because  he  was 
never  taught  anything  by  his  tutor  until  he  expressed  the 
desire  to  learn.     But  nothing  could  be  further  from  the  ' 
truth,  for  he  was  denied  full  human  companionship.    He  - 
possessed  impulses  towards  social  co-operation  which  were 
consistently  repressed  by  his  education.  He  was  prevented  • 
from  expressing  some  of  the  deepest  drives  of  his  nature, 
and   consequently  his   individuality  was   warped.    Para- 
doxical as  it  may  sound,  the  life  urge  of  an  individual  can 
never  be  fully  expressed  until  that  individual  has  learned  to 
co-operate  with  his  fellows,  and  to  see  himself  in  relation 
to  society.   It  may  be  that  it  is  through  this  process  of  co-  • 
operation  that  he  learns  to  distinguish  between  the  im- 
pulses that  issue  from  life  itself,  and  mere  passing  whims 
which  arise  superficially  through  his  contact  with  matter. 
In  any  case,  he  can  never  attain  to  fullness  of  life  until  he  . 
has  learned  to  serve  his  fellows. 

It  is  therefore  imperative  that  there  should  be  adequate 
opportunities  for  social  co-operation  in  our  schools.   The 
old  system,  with  its  large  classes  of  children  who  were  • 
herded  together  and  not  allowed  to  speak  to,  or  help,  one  • 
another  during  school  hours,  with  its  competitive  examina-  • 
tion  spirit  and  its  rewards  for  self-interest,  did  not  minister  • 
to  the  socializing  process  so  essential  to  the  full  develop- 
ment of  individuals.  The  newer  experimenters  emphasize 

^  See  Chapter  V,  pp.  47-8. 

79 


w 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

the  need  for  a  real  community  life.  The  school  common- 
wealth is  necessary  for  the  development  of  free  individuals. 
In  addition  to  the  discipline  that  comes  from  self-imposed 
work,  there  should  also  be  that  which  comes  from  having 
rights  and  responsibilities  as  a  member  of  a  community. 
To  this  discipline  the  individual  responds  naturally  :  he 
sanctions  it.  In  so  far  as  he  feels  himself  a  member  of  the 
community  that  gave  it  birth  it  is  not  external  to  him,  but 
is  imposed  by  the  socialized  self 

Finally,  there  is  the  highest  kind  of  freedom — real 
freedom.  It  has  already  been  shown  that  the  individual  is 
not  self-contained.  There  is  within  him  a  drive  towards  a 
^  socialized  self  which  must  not  be  repressed.  There  are 
aspects  of  his  nature  which  are  starved  until  he  enters  into 
harmonious  relationships  with  his  fellows.  But  neither  is 
the  human  species  self-contained.  There  is  a  larger  reality 
to  which  it  is  related.  And  the  same  creative  impulse  which 
is  at  work  in  it  to-day  was,  is,  and  will  be  at  work  not  only 
throughout  human  history,  but  throughout  the  whole  pro- 

•  cess  of  the  evolution  of  life.^  Just  as  social  freedom  means 

•  being  in  right  relationships  with  society^  so  real  freedom 
1  means  being  in  harmonious  relationships  with  eternal 
,  reality.  Real  freedom,  then,  contains  and  surpasses  both 
V   individual  and  social  freedom. 

According  to  Bergson,  the  individual  not  only  has  social 
instincts,  but  he  has  also  a  power  of  intuition  by  the  use  of 
which  he  may  hope  to  understand  and  to  enter  into  more 
perfect  relationships  with  living  creative  evolution.  And 
if  this  power  be  atrophied,  his  personality  will  never  expand 
to  its  fullest  possibilities.  Even  if  he  attains  to  a  socialized  , 
self  there  will  still  be  living  impulses  undeveloped  and 
depths  in  his  nature  unsatisfied. 

In  order  that  an  individual  may  be  educated  to  realize 
himself  fully  three  conditions  must  therefore  be  fulfilled. 

1  See  Chapters  IV  and  V. 
80 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SCHOOL  GOVERNMENT 

First,  in  childhood  and  youth  he  must  be  free  to  grow,  . 
to  choose  his  own  work  within  certain  limits,  and  to  follow  . 
his  own  creative  impulses  under  the  sympathetic  care  and  . 
guidance  of  those  who  understand  him. 

Secondly,  under  guidance  he  must  win  for  himself  social  ■ 
freedom  by  learning  to  co-operate  with  his  fellov^^, . 
through  participating  in  a  real  community  life. 

And,  thirdly,  he  must  be  helped  to  enter  into  harmoni- 
ous relationships  with  living  creative  evolution. 

Some  of  the  experiments  that  have  just  been  described 
have  shown  that  much  can  be  done  during  school  days  to 
prepare  boys  and  girls  for  a  true  social  freedom  ;  but  so  far 
little  has  been  attempted  in  the  direction  of  the  fulfilment 
of  the  third  condition.    Yet  during  childhood,  and  still  ' 
more  during  the  period  of  youth,  most  individuals  are 
powerfully  impelled  from  within  to  seek  a  philosophy  of 
life  ;    and  it  is  therefore  obvious  that  their  education  • 
should  be  such  as  to  minister  directly  to  this  powerful  im-  , 
pulse.   The  subjects  studied,  and  the  methods  of  learning, 
will  have  to  be  such  as  to  lead  to  an  understanding  of 
reality  ;    for  it  is  only  by  this  means  that  the  individual  ■ 
may  hope  to  attain  to  the  highest  kind  of  freedom,  and  thus  . 
to  realize  himself 


81 


CHAPTER    IX 

The  Growth  of  a  Philosophy  of  Life  and  the  Problem 
of  the  School  Curriculum 

HOWEVER  successful  an  individual  may  be  in  his 
struggles  against  necessity  and  his  utilization  of 
matter,  his  personality  will  never  expand  fully,  nor 
will  he  find  the  secret  of  the  art  of  living,  until  he  wins  for 
himself  a  measure  of  real  freedom  by  entering  into  har- 
monious relationship  with  reality  itself.    It  is  therefore  • 
necessary  that  he  should  be  educated  to  understand  life  . 
and  to  appreciate  creative  evolution.    He  will  need  a  * 
general  philosophy  of  life  to  help  him  to  play  his  part  in  • 
human  society,  in  addition  to  the  special  knowledge  and 
skill  which  will  enable  him  to  follow  his  own  vocation. 

The  period  of  youth  is  especially  critical  in  regard  to 
the  development  of  one's  philosophy  of  life.  At  this  stage 
not  only  is  the  rate  of  physical  growth  phenomenal,  but 
so  many  new  intellectual  interests  and  new  emotional  ex- 
periences crowd  in  upon  the  individual  that  the  whole 
balance  of  his  personality  tends  to  be  disturbed  ;  and  it  be- 
comes necessary  for  him  to  reorientate  himself  to  society 
and  to  the  other  spiritual  forces  which  he  now  perceives  to 
be  at  work  in  the  universe.  He  is  powerfully  impelled 
from  within  to  form  a  philosophy  of  life.  It  is,  therefore, 
fundamentally  important  that  at  this  period  every  in- 
dividual should  have  opportunities  for  further  education  ; 
and  that  the  teaching  given  him — whether  in  continua- 
tion, technical,  or  secondary  school — should  not  only  pre- 
pare him  to  earn  a  livelihood,  but  should  also  aid  him  in  his 
quest  for  a  religion.  It  is  in  the  light  of  this  need,  and  also 
of  the  laws  that  govern  the  growth  of  a  philosophy  of  life, 
that  we  are  most  likely  to  find  a  solution  of  the  difficult 
problem  of  the  curriculum  which  is  suitable  for  this  period. 
At  first  sight  it  may  seem  unwise  to  introduce  into  the 
discussion  of  the  problem  of  the  curriculum  such  a  con- 

82 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  SCHOOL  CURRICULUM 

troversial  subject  as  that  of  the  teaching  of  religion  ;  but 
further  consideration  will  show  that  it  is  the  separation 
of  these  two  problems  from  one  another  that  has  led  to 
their  both  being  misconceived,  and  consequently  to  their 
both  remaining  unsolved. 

It  is  difficult  to  be  satisfied  with  the  present  position  of, 
and  the  methods  employed  in,  so-called  religious  instruc- 
tion in  schools.  If  it  be  true  that  every  individual  develops 
from  within,  it  is  not  surprising  that  dogmatic  religious 
instruction,  given  to  large  classes  of  children  and  usually 
by  teachers  who  have  given  little  thought  to  the  question, 
is  so  ineffective  in  satisfying  the  needs  of  the  individuals 
comprising  the  group.  If  such  instruction  is  to  have  any 
real  meaning  to  a  child  it  must  run  parallel  to  his  own 
inner  religious  experiences.  It  must  await  their  develop- 
ment. In  short,  an  effective  philosophy  cannot  be  a  fabri-  - 
cation  of  the  theological  ideas  of  other  people.  It  must  be 
founded  on  the  individual's  own  experience. 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  the  individual  responds  to  cer- 
tain influences  that  come  from  without.  The  same  crea- 
tive impulse  that  is  at  work  within  him  is  also  expressing 
itself  throughout  creation  ;  and  his  development  occurs 
partly  through  interaction  between  him  and  other  spiritual 
forces  in  the  universe.  But  his  philosophy  of  life,  his 
organized  spiritual  experience,  must  be  his  own.  If  his 
theology  is  a  manufactured  article,  which  he  wears  as  he 
might  a  cloak,  it  will  have  little  or  no  influence  on  his  life, 
except  in  the  direction  of  deadening  his  own  spontaneous 
spiritual  experiences  True  religion  is  essentially  individual 
and  organic.  "  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with 
observation.  Neither  shall  they  say,  lo  here  !  or  lo  there  ! 
for,  behold,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you." 

On  this  account  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  re- 
ligion can  ever  be  explicitly  taught  as  a  class  subject.  Of 
course,  creeds  can  be  recited  and  articles  of  fiiith  memo- 

83 


't 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

rized,  but  these  merely  serve  to  clutter  up  the  minds  of 
those  children  who  have  no  direct  and  relevant  experience 
by  which  to  interpret  them.  Of  what  use  is  it  to  teach  a 
class  of  children  of  three  or  four  years  of  age  to  express 
their  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  ?  On  what  ex- 
perience of  theirs  can  it  possibly  rest  ?  And  yet  this  has 
been  done  daily  by  a  teacher,  who  apparently  was  devoted 
to  the  interests  of  the  children,  but  who  entirely  miscon- 
ceived her  own  office.  The  truth  is  that  most  of  us  have 
too  much  confidence  in  our  own  partial  views  of  reality 
and  too  little  faith  in  the  innate  creativeness  and  spirituality 
of  children.  We  do  not  really  believe  that  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  each  little  child  ;  and  therefore,  not  in- 
frequently, we  do  our  best  to  smother  the  divine  spark  by 
heaping  upon  it  a  mass  of  dead  dogmas.  We  forget  that  it 
is  natural  for  children  to  have  intercourse  with  God.  As 
Professor  Campagnac  says  :  "  They  are  ready  to  find  Him 
everywhere,  until,  misled  by  us,  they  learn  to  iniagine  that 
He  may  be  imprisoned  in  a  shrine,  or  His  operation  limited 
to  special  occasions."^ 

It  is  because  some  of  us  imagine  that  we  have  cornered 
.  reality  that  the  educational  world  frequently  becomes  in- 
.  volved  in  the  strife  and  tumult  of  bitter  religious  contro- 
»  versies.    We  quarrel  among  ourselves  as  to  whether  this 
doctrine  or  that  shall  be  taught,  but  we  seldom  stop  to  con- 
sider whether  we  have  any  right  at  all  to  impose  our  ready- 
made  and  imperfect  conceptions  upon  the  minds  of  chil- 
dren, and  thus  possibly  to  raise  barriers  between  them  and 
reality.  We  hear  much  of  the  rights  of  different  denomina- 
tions to  have  entrance  into  the  schools,  the  rights  of  parents 
to  have  their  children  instructed  in  their  own  faith,  the 
rights  of  teachers  to  be  free  from  religious  tests,  and  even 
the  rights  of  ratepayers  ;   but  we  seldom  consider  the  in- 
1  E.T.  Campagnac:  Reiigton  and  Religious  Teaching  (^i()i9), 

p.  27. 

84 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  SCHOOL  CURRICULUM 

violate  right  of  each  individual  child  to  come  into  direct 
contact  with  the  great  spiritual  forces  that  are  at  work  in 
the  universe.  He  may  be  led  to  find  the  secret  of  life 
through  his  contemplation  of  the  wonders  of  Nature, 
through  his  study  of  the  life  of  Christ,  through  the  love  of 
parents  or  the  devotion  of  a  pet,  through  pain  and  sickness, 
or  through  joy,  "  a  fancy  from  a  flower  bell,  someone's 
death,  a  chorus  ending  from  Euripides."  And  no  inter- 
pretation of  life  will  suit  his  case  which  does  not  issue 
from,  and  indeed  synthesize,  his  own  deepest  experiences. 
His  philosophy  must  be  his  own. 

Of  course,  this  does  not  mean  that  a  child  is  to  be  left 
without  human  help  in  his  search  for  truth.  No  teacher 
with  deep  religious  convictions  can  help  influencing  the 
children  under  her  care.  No  parent  can  avoid  controlling, 
to  some  extent,  the  spiritual  environment  of  his  child. 
But  Dr.  Montessori  has  shown  that  it  is  possible  to  control 
the  environment,  and  yet  to  leave  a  real  choice  to  each 
child  to  respond  according  to  his  individual  needs  and 
interests.  So  it  should  be  with  religious  education.  There 
should  be  no  imposition  of  definite  dogmas  or  fixed  views 
of  reality,  which  tend  to  prevent  further  growth.  There 
should  be  no  compulsion  on  the  child  even  to  join  in  cor- 
porate worship.  But  it  is  well  for  him  to  hear  the  simple 
Bible  narrative,  and  to  be  a  spectator  of  sincere  acts  of 
corporate  worship.  The  influences  that  surround  him  can, 
and  should  be,  controlled  ;  but  he  himself  must  be  left  free 
to  respond  to  them  according  to  the  urge  within. 

Once  this  is  realized  the  problem  of  the  teaching  of 
religion  takes  on  an  entirely  new  complexion  ;  for  the 
influences  that  surround  an  individual  are  not  confined  to 
set  times  or  places.  The  growth  of  a  philosophy  of  life  does 
not  take  place  only  in  periods  set  apart  for  so-called  re- 
ligious instruction.  Any  hour  of  any  day,  and  any  subject 
in  the  curriculum  or  any  experience  outside  it  may  con- 

85 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

tribute  something  vital  to  the  individual's  philosophy. 
"  As  the  lightning  which  shineth  from  one  part  of  heaven 
even  unto  the  other,  so  is  the  coming  of  everything  that  is 
critically  important  for  the  human  mind.  No  prophet  can 
foretell  the  hour,  the  place,  or  the  form."  No  one's  philo- 
sophy of  life  is  acquired  on  ear-marked  occasions,  or  by  the 
study  of  the  history  of  one  special  people. 

Religion,  taught  as  a  subject  among  subjects,  is,  there- 
bound  to  be  merely  perfunctory,  for  so  many  vital  ex- 
periences will  lie  outside  it.    And  the  time  will  probably 
come  when  the  inconsistencies  between  its  teaching,  and 
the  knowledge  and  experience  gained  in  other  directions, 
will  make  the  individual  regard  his  ready-made  theology 
as  worthless,  and  he  will  discard  it  with  contempt.  Of  what  • 
use  is  it  to  teach  a  gospel  of  love  in  a  period  set  apart  for  . 
religious  instruction  if  the  whole  teaching  of  English  his-  ' 
tory  be  narrowly  national  and  shot  through  with  the  • 
blasphemy  of  hate  ?  Of  what  use  is  it  to  teach  science  side 
by  side  with  a  theology  to  which  it  is  unrelated,  and  with 
which  it  can  never  be  harmonized  ? 

It  is  no  wonder  that  boys  and  girls  find  it  so  difficult 
to  gain  a  working  philosophy  of  life  when  the  curriculum 
consists  of  arbitrarily  chosen  subjects,  without  relation  to 
one  another  or  to  life  itself ;  and  when  those  subjects  are 
taught  in  such  a  way  that  different  systems  of  values  are 
implicit  in  them.  The  muddle  is  not  righted  by  setting 
aside  a  few  periods  a  week  for  explicitly  teaching  yet  an- 
other view  of  life  which  is  inconsistent  with  most  of  the 
others.  This  simply  adds  to  the  confusion.  Until  the  prob- 
lem of  the  curriculum  is  feced  squarely  and  the  influences 
to  be  emphasized  are  carefully  and  consistently  selected 
— in  other  words,  until  all  the  work  of  each  week  has  a 
philosophical  orientation — the  problem  of  the  teaching  of 
a  philosophy  of  life  will  not  begin  to  be  solved. 

It  has  already  been  shown  that  at  the  early  stages  of 

86 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  SCHOOL  CURRICULUM 

education  much  of  the  artificiality  of  the  division  of  the 
curriculum  into  subjects  can  be  eliminated  by  arranging 
for  the  various  lines  of  interest  to  separate  out  from  the 
concrete  occupations  of  a  purposive  life.^  But  at  a  later 
stage,  when  wider  interests  arise  and  a  greater  degree  of 
separation  results,  something  more  is  necessary  to  bring 
harmony  and  life  into  the  different  subjects  of  study  pur- 
sued side  by  side. 

The  modern  emphasis  on  correlation  is  one  attempt  to 
relate  the  different  subjects,  and  thus  to  bring  meaning  and 
purposiveness  into  the  curriculum. 

Mr.  Kenneth  Richmond  makes  another  attempt  in  the 
same  direction  by  advocating  a  synthetic  method  of  teach- 
ing.* According  to  this  method  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  sub- 
jects studied  by  a  class  would  have  to  be  taken  by  one 
teacher,  who  would  make  so  many  cross-references  from 
subject  to  subject  that  the  children  would  naturally  be  en- 
couraged to  relate  their  different  studies,  and  to  try  to  find 
a  meaning  for  the  whole. 

Mr.  Richmond's  synthetic  method  is  certainly  good  so 
far  as  it  goes.  It  aims  at  making  a  philosophy  of  life  possible ; 
but,  like  the  principle  of  correlation,  it  does  not  go  deep 
enough.  Because  the  cement  is  good  it  does  not  follow 
that  any  odd  fragments  of  china  can  be  made  into  a  vase. 
It  depends  on  the  nature  of  the  fragments.  Similarly,  the 
success  of  a  synthetic  method  of  instruction  depends,  not 
only  on  the  method  itself,  but  also  upon  the  subjects  of 
study  chosen  for  inclusion  in  the  curriculum.  Is  it  likely 
that  subjects  selected  arbitrarily  according  to  mere  tradi- 
tion can  be  synthesized  into  any  sort  of  a  whole  ?  This 
would  not  be  possible  even  in  the  mind  of  the  teacher, 
still  less  in  the  minds  of  the  children.  Of  course,  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  the  growth  of  an  understanding  of 

1  See  Chapter  VII,  pp.  64-7. 

*  K.  Richmond  :  Education  for  Liberty, 

87 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

life  takes  place  within  each  individual,  and  depends  partly 
on  his  individuality.  The  curriculum  must,  therefore, 
always  allow  of  a  certain  measure  of  choice  to  such  pupil  : 
there  must  be  a  number  of  options.  But,  in  addition,  the 
training  received  is  only  likely  to  lead  to  an  understanding 
of  reality  if  the  departments  out  of  which  the  pupil's 
choice  has  to  be  made  are  selected  on  some  sound  philo- 
sophical principle. 

Bergson's  philosophy  is  especially  helpful  in  regard  to 
this  selection.  And  its  guidance  wras  never  more  needed 
in  England  than  it  is  to-day,  when  extensive  provision  is 
being  made  for  the  further  education  of  youth,  both  by 
the  extension  of  secondary  education  and  by  the  setting 
up  of  central  schools  and  of  a  few  part-time  day  continua- 
tion schools.  So  far  continuation  schools  are  practically  free 
from  bondage  to  tradition,  and  they  therefore  provide 
unique  opportunities  for  experiment  in  respect  to  the 
curriculum.  But  it  is  possible  that  the  experiments  and 
even  the  work  itself  may  miscarry  in  these  schools  if  the 
underlying  principles  are  not  carefully  thought  out. 

According  to  Bergson,  action  is  man's  first  necessity. 
He  has  a  body,  which  is  his  instrument  of  action  ;i  and  an 
intellect,  which  is  specially  adapted  for  the  understanding 
and  utilization  of  matter  with  which  life  is  in  conflict.* 
The  intellect  is  essentially  analytic  in  its  operations  ;  and 
one  of  its  devices  for  purposes  of  action  is  to  fix  things 
that  are  really  changing.  In  itself  it  is,  therefore,  unequal 
to  the  task  of  appreciating  durations.  However  well 
trained  it  may  be,  it  is  always  turned  towards  matter  and 
av^y  from  life  i  and  it  always  lets  slip  the  biggest  things 
in  existence. 

But  man  has  another  power,  that  of  intuition,'  by  the 
use  of  which  alone  he  can  hope  to  comprehend  personality, 

1  See  Chapter  III,  pp.  31-2.     «  See  Chapter  VI,  pp.  52-4. 

»  See  Chapter  I. 

88 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  SCHOOL  CURRICULUM 

life,  and  spirit.  It  is  true  that  in  the  past  he  has  frequently  • 
made  the  mistake  of  sacrificing  intuition  to  intelligence. 
He  has  concentrated  his  attention  on  matter  to  such  an  ex-  • 
tent  that  it  has  sometimes  seemed  to  him  that  nothing  else 
existed.  The  world  has  been  too  much  with  him.  Getting 
and  spending,  he  has  laid  waste  his  powers  of  intuition. 
He  has  given  away  his  heart,  a  sordid  boon.  And  the  result 
has  been  that  he  has  frequently  failed  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  life :    he  has  missed  the  secret  of  the  art  of 

living. 

In  arranging  schemes  for  the  continued  education  of 
adolescents  it  is  perilously  easy  to  magnify  the  pupil's  need 
to  understand  matter  in  order  to  earn  a  livelihood,  and  to 
ignore  his  need  to  understand  life.    This  is  one  of  the 
dangers  that  imperil  the  success  of  the  new  scheme  for 
part-time  continued  education.   If  the  instruction  given  be 
technical  and  utilitarian  the  individual  may  become  a  more 
intelligent  workman,  a  better  machine,  and  the  production 
of  wealth  may  thereby  be  increased  ;   but  he  will  not  be 
helped  to  live  more  abundantly,  and  the  creative  forces 
that  are  at  work  in  the  universe  will  consequently  not  be 
reinforced  in  their  struggles  against  necessity.   This  is  not  • 
only  true  of  that  narrowly  vocational  instruction  for  which 
few  educationists  would  put  up  a  serious  case,  but  also  of 
that  wider  scientific  and  business  training  which  is  charac-  » 
teristic  of  some  existing  technical  schools.    The  physical 
sciences,  mathematics,  applied  sciences,  one  or  two  modern 
languages  that  are  likely  to  be  of  use  in  business,  book- 
keeping, and  other  commercial  subjects,  drawing,  and 
handwork — these  are  the  subjects    studied.     Even    the 
periods  set  apart  for  English  have  a  definitely  utilitarian 
bias.  The  pupils  are  taught  to  write  business  letters,  or  are 
encouraged  to  read  the  lives  of  inventors  or  the  history  of 
British  commerce.  The  whole  scheme  is  calculated  to  pre-  > 
pare  the  pupils  for  action,  and  to  enable  them  to  do  their   t 

89 


II 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

own  jobs  efficiently ;  but  it  leaves  them  in  the  dark  con- 
cerning the  nature  and  meaning  of  life.  In  itself,  it  would 
lead  them  to  think  that  efficiency  and  commercial  success 
are  everything,  and  that  nothing  else  matters.  In  pre- 
war days  there  used  to  be  "  sound  business  "  men  who  were 
enamoured  with  such  a  scheme.  But  one  would  imagine 
that  the  war,  which  revealed  on  such  a  vast  scale  the 
tragic  results  of  the  mechanization  of  life,^  would  have 
taught  even 

Thick  heads  to  recognize 
The  Devil,  that  old  stager,  at  his  trick 
Of  general  utility,  who  leads 
Downward,  perhaps,  but  fiddles  all  the  way.* 

In  order  that  a  man  may  be  educated  to  play  his  part 
in  human  society  something  more  is  needed  than  the  ac- 
quiring of  technical  skill  and  of  knowledge  concerning  the 
laws  of  matter.  With  all  his  getting  he  must  get  under- 
standing, that  understanding  of  life  which  alone  is  true 
wisdom.  If  he  is  not  educated  to  do  this  he  will  misuse  his 
technical  skill,  perhaps  even  selling  it  to  the  highest  bidder 
for  his  own  narrow  individualistic  ends. 

According  to  the  Bergsonian  position,  then,  a  balanced 
curriculum  ought  to  satisfy  both  sides  of  the  pupiPs  nature — 
his  need  for  action  and  his  need  for  an  understanding  of 
life. 

In  order  that  his  body  may  be  fully  equipped  for  pur- 
poses of  action  there  should  be  some  form  or  forms  of 
physical  training  suitable  to  his  individual  needs.  And 
there  should  also  be  training  for  the  intellect,  either 
through  vocational  work  or  through  more  purely  intel- 
lectual studies,  according  to  the  ability  and  desires  of  the 
pupil. 

1  See  Chapter  V,  pp.  46-7. 
*  Browning  :  Red  Cotton  Nightcap  Country, 

90 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  SCHOOL  CURRICULUM 

In  the  second  place,  there  should  be  time  and  oppor-  • 
tunity  for  the  study  of  life,  for  subjects  which  might  be 
called  intuitional,  such  as  biology,  world-history,  literature 
(and  especially  poetry),  art,  and  the  kind  of  philosophy  that 
would  illustrate  the  broad  movements  of  human  thought, 
and  would  include  a  study  of  the  evolution  of  religion. 

In  the  secondary  school,  where  the  pupils  receive  full- 
time  instruction,  there  ought  to  be  no  difficulty  in  working 
out  a  balanced  curriculum :  provided,  in  the  first  place, 
that  teachers  do  not  cling  to  traditional  compulsory  sub- 
jects, such  as  Latin  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  that 
Examining  Boards  and  the  Board  of  Education  recognize 
that  options  within  each  group  are  necessary,  according  to 
each  individual's  interests.  For  example,  it  is  possible  to 
have  one  course  of  intellectual  training  which  is  pre- 
dominantly practical  in  its  nature,  and  another  which  is 
more  theoretical.  One  type  of  girl  may  profit  more  by  a 
domestic  science  course  or  a  secretarial  training  course, 
and  another  by  more  academic  studies.  But  while  the 
principle  of  options  within  each  group  should  be  recog- 
nized, it  is  doubtful  whether,  at  secondary  school  age — 
even  in  an  advanced  course — there  should  ever  be  the 
entire  omission  of  one  side.  No  pupil  in  a  secondary  school 
should  be  devoting  all  his  time  to  mathematics  and  the 
physical  sciences.  He  needs  poetry  and  the  arts.  He  needs  • 
to  understand  life's  great  adventure,  especially  as  it  is  seen 
in  the  evolution  of  man.  In  short,  he  needs  the  comple- 
ment of  the  sciences,  namely,  "  life  "  subjects. 

In  continuation  schools,  where  the  instruction  given 
will  be  part-time  and  the  hours  of  attendance  few,  it  will 
be  more  difficult  to  preserve  this  balance;  and  pressure 
may  be  brought  to  b^r  on  the  teachers  to  give  that  kind 
of  training  that  makes  for  industrial  efficiency.  It  should  - 
be  remembered,  however,  that  the  very  fact  that  the 
pupils  are  engaged  for  most  of  the  week  in  industrial  work 

91 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

means  that  the  balance  of  their  hves  would  be  better  pre- 
served by  omitting  vocational  and  technical  subjects  than 
"  life  "  subjects.  What  they,  and  indeed  full-time  pupils, 
need  most  of  all  is  an  insight  into  what  man  is  and  what 
he  may  become.  No  modern  educational  thinker  has 
realized  this  more  clearly  than  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells.  "  I  have 
believed  always  and  taught  always,"  he  writes  in  the 
person  of  Job  Huss,  an  educational  reformer,  **  that  what 
God  demands  from  man  is  his  utmost  effort  to  co-operate 
and  understand.  ...  I  have  taught  philosophy  ;  I  have 
taught  the  whole  history  of  mankind.  If  I  could  not  have 
done  that  without  leaving  chemistry  and  physics,  mathe- 
matics and  languages  out  of  the  curriculum  altogether, 
I  would  have  left  them  out."^ 

What  is  needed,  then,  both  in  secondary  and  continua- 
tion schools,  is  that  these  "  life  "  subjects  should  have  their 
proper  place  in  the  curriculum  ;  and  that,  side  by  side  with 
their  systematic  study,  there  should  be  a  real  social  life  in 
the  school.  We  have  already  seen  that  even  in  progressive 
secondary  schools  there  is  often  a  great  gap  between  the 
systematic  work  of  the  boys  and  girls  and  their  social  life. 
The  pupils  may  be  learning  to  co-operate  with  their 
fellows  for  purposes  of  discipline  ;  but  their  studies  seem 
to  have  no  bearing  on  the  real  problems  of  government 
with  which  they  are  confronted.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see 
that  if  these  "  life  "  subjects  had  their  proper  place  in  the 
curriculum  this  gap  would  be  reduced  The  pupils'  ex-  • 
periments  in  social  co-operation  and  government  would 
illuminate  their  study  of  history  ;  and,  in  turn,  their  study 
of  history  would  throw  light  on  their  experiments.  And 
the  two  together,  constituting,  as  it  were,  the  theory  and 
practice  of  social  life,  would  go  a  long  way  towards  helping 
them  to  develop  a  true  philosophy. 

In  addition,  the  study  of  the  views  of  poets  and  mystics  ^ 
1  H.  G.  Wells  :  The  Undying  Fire,  p.  1 14. 

92 


y 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  SCHOOL  CURRICULUM 

concerning  nature  and  life,  the  study  of  the  evolution  • 
of  man's  spiritual  experience,  and  particularly  of  his  con- 
ception of  God  as  illustrated  in  the  records  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  consideration  of  what  man  may  be-  , 
come  through  the  study  of  the  New  Testament,  may  help 
in  the  growth  of  the  individual's  understanding  of  reality. ' 
But  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the  apprehension  of 
other  people's  views  or  snapshots  of  reality  is  insufficient  in 
itself.   There  must  also  be  a  direct  intuition  of  the  move- 
ment.  On  this  account  it  is  not  enough  to  arrange  for  the  . 
inclusion   of  "life"  subjects  in  the  curriculum.    The  . 
methods  employed  in  their  teaching  must  also  be  of  such  a 
nature  as  to  encourage  intuition  on  the  part  of  each  pupil. 
For  example,  although  a  systematic  consideration  of  the 
forms  of  life  is  necessary  in  the  teaching  of  biology,  the 
study  must  not  stop  there  if  it  is  to  contribute  anything  to  a 
philosophy  of  life.  The  process  of  evolution  must  be  seized 
suh  specie  durattonis.    If  this  could  be  done,  not  only  in 
biology,  but  in  other  "  life  "  subjects,  it  would  be  found 
that  there  would  be  no  permanent  opposition  between  the 
individual's  philosophy  and  his   science.     Gradually   he 
would  come  to  possess  a  philosophy  of  life  which  would 
limit,  but  at  the  same  time  complete,  his  knowledge  of 
matter. 


93 


CHAPTER    X 

New  Methods  in  Teaching,     Creation 

WE  have  already  seen  that  an  individual  is  truly 
educated  in  so  far  as  he  succeeds  in  expressing  the 
living  forces  that  are  within  him  and  in  winning 
for  himself  a  measure  of  real  freedom.  And  our  analysis 
has  shown,  further,  that  in  order  that  he  may  attain  to 
real  freedom  three  conditions  must  be  fulfilled.  He  must 
certainly  be  allowed  and  encouraged  to  follow  his  own 
deepest  creative  impulses  ;  but,  in  addition,  since  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  the  ilan  vital  is  shared  by  all  his  fellows, 
and,  indeed,  by  all  living  organisms,  he  must  have  oppor- 
tunities for  learning  to  co-operate  with  his  fellows,  and  he 
must  also  be  helped  to  enter  into  harmonious  relationships 
with  life  itself. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  the  working  out  of  these 
three  principles  in  practice  would  not  only  affect  the 
general  organization,  discipline,  and  curricula  of  schools,^ 
but  might  also  be  expected  to  influence  the  actual  methods 
employed  in  teaching.  Indeed,  on  examination,  many  of 
the  newer  methods  of  teaching  reveal  themselves  to  be  in 
line  with  the  Bergsonian  position,  and  to  have  implicit 
in  them  a  recognition  of  one  or  more  of  these  principles. 
For  the  sake  of  clearness  these  will  be  classified  according 
to  the  principle  which  they  emphasize  ;  but  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  the  three  principles  are  intimately  inter- 
woven. 

If  it  be  true  that  the  development  of  an  individual  is  a 
creative  process,  it  follows  that  opportunities  for  creation 
are  essential  in  any  well-arranged  curriculum.  And  for 
some  time  there  has  been  a  welcome  change  in  educational 
method  in  the  direction  of  recognizing  the  importance  of 
creative  acts  on  the  part  of  each  individual. 

In  the  past  repetition  and  drill  were  the  usual  methods 
1  See  Chapters  VIII  and  IX. 

94 


CREATION 

of  instruction  in  the  elementary  school.  In  the  geography  ' 
lesson,  lists  of  rivers,  capes,  and  bays  were  learned  by  heart; 
in  the  grammar  lesson,  lists  of  examples  of  parts  of  speech 
were  repeated  ;  and  in  history,  lists  of  dates,  battles,  and 
kings  were  recited.  Even  in  the  time  devoted  to  arith- 
metic there  was  much  repetition  of  tables  j  and  the 
general  aim  seemed  to  be  to  drill  the  pupils  into  a  kind  of 
mechanical  proficiency  in  working  a  limited  number  of 
different  kinds  of  sums.  In  short,  there  was  much  time 
spent  in  drill  and  learning  by  heart  and  little  in  construe-  • 
tive  work. 

Similarly,  until  comparatively  recently,  there  were  few 
opportunities  for  creative  work  in  public  and  secondary 
schools.  Most  of  the  time  devoted  to  classics  was  either 
spent  in  the  learning  by  heart  of  declensions,  verbs,  rules  of 
grammar,  and  lists  of  exceptions  to  rules,  or  in  mechanic- 
ally translating  classical  authors.  It  is,  of  course,  true  that 
at  the  higher  stages  boys  were  encouraged  to  write  Greek 
or  Latin  verse  :  but  even  then  it  was  the  imitation  of 
classical  authors  that  was  aimed  at,  and  not  free  construc- 
tive work.  In  mathematics  the  pupils  fared  slightly  better. 
There  were  opportunities  for  exercising  ingenuity  in  solv- 
ing riders.  But,  unfortunately,  these  provided  no  sure  way 
of  escape  from  the  danger  of  mechanization,  except  to 
those  pupils  who  were  distinctly  mathematical.  On  ac- 
count of  the  abstract  nature  of  the  subject  many  boys  were 
not  sufficiently  interested  to  be  able  to  make  the  necessary 
constructive  effort  in  this  direction,  and  consequently  they 
were  left  without  a  medium  for  the  expression  of  their 
creative  impulses. 

The  employment  of  the  heuristic  method  in  the  teach- 
ing of  science  seemed  in  theory  to  be  a  great  step  forward. 
It  was  a  definite  attempt  to  make  each  pupil  use  his  own 
ingenuity  to  discover  his  own  science  :  but  in  practice 
there  were  many  difficulties   that  militated  against  the 

95 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

complete  success  of  the  method,  at  least  as  it  was  first  con- 
ceived. Frequently  much  time  was  wasted  ;  and  at  the 
end  many  boys  and  girls  either  got  nowhere  or  were 
pushed  into  a  discovery  by  artifices  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher.  Indeed,  some  seemed  to  have  little  or  no  power 
to  solve  for  themselves  the  particular  problems  set  before 
them  by  the  teacher.  The  experiment  was,  however,  of 
great  educational  value,  for  it  revealed  the  truth  that 
individuals  cannot  create  to  order  in  a  predetermined 
direction. 

Similar  experiments  are  being  made  to-day  in  other 
subjects.  Teachers  of  English  are  realizing  the  value  of 
constructive  work  and  are  providing  more  frequent  oppor- 
tunities for  free  composition  and  for  the  illustration  of  the 
literary  works  studied.  In  his  book  entitled  The  Play  Way 
Mr.  Caldwell  Cook  has  described  many  ingenious  ways 
which  he  has  used  to  encourage  creativeness  through  the 
teaching  of  English.  Both  he  and  Mr.  Norman  Mac- 
Munn^  have  shown  that  it  is  possible  for  schoolboys  to 
write  plays  and  to  produce  them  themselves.  The  writing 
and  acting  of  a  play,  the  composition  of  the  incidental 
music  in  it,  the  making  of  the  scenery,  and  the  arrange- 
ments for  lighting  the  stage  provide  a  variety  of  oppor- 
tunities for  creation  on  the  part  of  the  pupils.  Similar 
dramatic  and  constructive  methods  are  now  being  com- 
monly used  in  the  teaching  of  history.  Indeed,  there  is 
hardly  a  subject  in  the  ordinary  school  curriculum  the 
teaching  of  which  has  not  recently  shown  signs  of  im- 
provement in  this  direction  through  its  closer  alliance  with 
the  arts  and  crafts. 

The  methods  employed  in  the  teaching  of  the  arts  also 
tend  to  be  modified  in  the  direction  of  an  increase  of  em- 
phasis on  creation.   Take,  for  example,  the  art  of  music 

1  Report  of  Conference  on  New  Ideals  in  Education  (191 8), 
pp.  139-145. 

96 


CREATION 

There  is  an  increasing  recognition  among  practical  teachers 
that  the  older  mechanical  methods  of  teaching  were  not 
educational  in  the  broadest  sense  ;  and  that  music  ought 
to  be  taught  in  such  a  way  that  even  in  the  early  stages 
children  have  frequent  opportunities  for  expressing  them- 
selves creatively.  Dr.  Yorke  Trotter^  has  shown  how  this 
can  be  done  practically,  and  how  children  can  be  helped 
to  appreciate  music  through  their  own  efforts  at  composi- 
tion. The  results  obtained  through  his  system  are  as- 
tonishing, and  certainly  constitute  a  practical  proof  of  the 
value  of  creative  methods  in  the  teaching  of  music. 

The  system  of  eurhythmies  evolved  by  M.  Jacques 
Dalcroze  is  based  on  the  same  principle,  though  differently 
applied.  The  pupils  have  frequent  opportunities  of  ex- 
pressing themselves  creatively  through  rhythmical  move- 
ments. They  learn  to  appreciate  music  through  its  ex- 
pression in  bodily  movements,  and  there  is  throughout  a 
place  for  improvisation.  "  All  children  feel  a  craving  to 
create,"  says  M.  Dalcroze,  "  and  the  teacher  should  lose 
no  opportunity  of  turning  this  disposition  to  account.  He 
should  set  them,  from  their  earliest  lessons,  to  improvise 
short  phrases  ...  or  to  replace  a  bar  of  melody  by  one  of 
their  own  composition.  He  will  find  them  revel  in  such 
exercises  and  make  rapid  progress  in  improvising. "2  As  we 
shall  see  later,  other  principles  of  the  greatest  educational 
significance  are  also  involved  in  this  system  :  but  here  it  is 
sufficient  to  notice  that  one  of  the  most  outstanding  modern 
developments  in  musical  education  is  based  on  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  value  of  creative  expression. 

But  although  the  educational  world  is  beginning  to 
realize  the  part  played  by  creation  in  the  development  of  a 
personality,  there  is  still  a  great  need  for  a  deeper  analysis 

^  Report  of  Conference  on  New  Ideals  in  Education^  I9i4and 
1919. 

*  Rhythm ^  Music ,  and  Education  (192 1),  p.  44. 

97  G 


Ill 


I 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

of  the  process  in  order  that  teachers  may  understand  the 
conditions  necessary  for  the  successful  application  of  the 
newer  methods.  It  is  of  little  use  vaguely  advocating  their 
employment  if  no  practical  guidance  can  be  given  con- 
cerning the  conditions  that  must  be  fulfilled  before  an 
individual  can  be  expected  to  create  anything,  either  in 
thought,  language,  or  more  material  form. 

The  first  condition  for  the  successful  use  of  creative 
methods  in  teaching  is  obvious.  An  individual  is  unlikely 
to  be  able  to  create  anything  in  a  direction  which  is  not 
of  his  own  choosing.  The  early  advocates  of  the  heuristic 
method  of  teaching,  who  fixed  the  particular  scientific 
problem  to  be  investigated  and  expected  all  the  individuals 
in  a  class  to  be  able  to  make  constructive  efforts  in  the 
same  direction,  entirely  misunderstood  the  springs  of 
originality.  All  creations  present  an  organic  character. 
Although  they  are  never  entirely  calculable,  yet  they  de- 
pend, to  some  extent,  on  the  accumulated  experience 
and  on  the  trend  of  interest  of  the  individual.  They  issue 
from  the  life  urge  of  their  author.  "  If  the  characters 
created  by  a  poet  give  us  the  impression  of  life,"  says  Berg- 
son,  "  this  is  only  because  they  are  the  poet  himself."^ 
And  no  one  can  be  expected  to  create  a  solution  of  any 
problem  in  which  he  is  not  deeply  interested,  and  concern- 
ing which  he  does  not  feel  the  "  burthen  of  the  mystery." 
In  order  to  encourage  creativeness,  then,  the  first  thing 
that  is  needed  is  variety  of  opportunity,  so  that  each  in- 
dividual may  find  his  own  line,  if  not  in  science  and  mathe- 
matics, then  in  art,  literature,  handwork,  or  in  some  other 
direction  ;  and  if  not  in  one  problem  or  topic,  then  in  an- 
other. The  practical  bearing  of  this  is  obvious.  There 
should  be  some  choice  of  subjects  in  the  curriculum,  al- 
though the  balance  between  the  main  groups  should  always 
be  preserved.  And  even  in  a  subject  chosen  for  study  by  a 

^  Laughter^  p.  167. 

98 


. 


( 


II 


CREATION 

child  the  teacher  should  not  always  fix  the  problem  or  the 
subject  for  constructive  work  and  expect  cw^ry  member  of 
his  class  to  travel  in  the  same  direction.  Class  syllabuses 
must  therefore  be  more  elastic  than  they  have  been  in  the 
past.  In  science,  for  example,  the  pupils  should  sometimes 
be  allowed  a  choice  of  problems.  They  should  be  en- 
couraged to  investigate  questions  which  have  occurred  to 
them  spontaneously :  for  the  same  boy  may  be  utterly 
idle  and  stupid  when  faced  with  something  that  is  not  to 
him  a  real  problem,  and  alert  and  eager  when  allowed  to 
investigate  a  question  which  has  long  been  to  him  a  sub- 
ject of  thought  If  he  has  tried  to  mend  clocks,  or  if  he  is 
keen  about  motor  bicycles  or  aeroplanes,  many  questions 
will  arise  spontaneously  in  his  own  mind.  And,  if  allowed 
and  helped  by  his  teacher,  he  will  investigate  these  with 
sustained  effort  and  with  something  of  the  scientist's  sense 
of  joyous  intellectual  adventure,  for  he  will  really  desire  to 
know.  Such  opportunities  for  individual  work  are  neces- 
sary side  by  side  with  systematic  class  work. 

Suppose,  then,  that  an  individual  really  wishes  to  do  a 
certain  piece  of  constructive  work.  There  will  probably 
need  to  be  time  between  the  outlining  of  the  problem  and 
its  solution,  or  between  the  rough  vague  scheme  and  the 
finished  mental  product.  There  appears  to  be  a  kind  of 
incubation  period  before  an  act  of  creation.  There  has  to 
be  a  play  of  ideas  in  the  mind.  There  have  to  be  comings 
and  goings,  oscillations,  struggle  and  negotiations  between 
the  ideas  before  they  fit  themselves  into  a  scheme.  This 
is  how  Bergson  describes  the  process  :  "  We  have  the 
distinct  feeling  of  a  form  of  organization,  variable  no  doubt, 
but  anterior  to  the  elements  which  must  be  orgariized, 
then,  of  a  competition  between  the  elements  themselves; 
and  lastly,  if  we  succeed  in  inventing,  of  an  equilibrium 
which  is  a  reciprocal  adaptation  of  the  form  and  of  the 
matter.  .  .  .  It  is  just  as  though  we  had  to  stretch  a  piece 

99 


'I 


itlh 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

of  indiarubber  in  different  directions  at  the  same  time  in 
order  to  bring  it  to  the  geometrical  form  of  a  particular 
polygon.  It  shrinks  at  some  points,  according  as  it  is 
lengthened  at  others.  We  have  to  begin  over  and  over 
again,  each  time  fixing  the  partial  result  obtained  ;  we 
may  even  have,  during  the  operation,  to  modify  the  form 
first  assigned  to  the  polygon.  So  it  is  with  the  effort  of 
invention."^  In  some  cases  there  must  be  a  period  of 
waiting;  the  problem  must  lie  fallow,  presumably  in 
order  that  secret  adjustments  may  take  place  in  the 
unconscious  mind  j  and  then  suddenly  the  act  of  creation 

is  completed.  ... 

In  attempting  to  use  creative  methods  in  teachmg  it  is, 
therefore,  necessary  that  adequate  time  should  be  given 
to  the  pupils  for  invention.   The  rigidity  of  the  ordinary 
school  time-table,  of  course,  makes  this  difficult.   Yet  even 
a  well-trained  adult  could  hardly  produce  original  literary 
work  in  a  forty  minutes  period.    But  in  school,  if  a  pupil 
delayed  writing  until  the  process  of  creation  was  accom- 
plished, he  would  probably  find  that  just  when  the  sub- 
ject was  beginning  to  take  shape  in  his  mind  the  bell 
would  ring  out  the  period  for  composition,  and  ring  in  that 
for  Latin  or  some  other  subject.    He  would  be  expected  to 
switch  his  mind,  tense  in  the  throes  of  creation,  on  to  a 
topic  out  of  line  with  its  movement.   And  the  natural  re- 
sult would  be,  not  only  failure  to  complete  the  creative 
work,  but  boredom  with  the  new  subject  of  study.    Of 
course,  this  division  of  the  working  day  into  periods  of 
equal  length  is  a  practical  convenience,  and  is  well  adapted 
for  routine  and  mechanical  work.   But  it  does  not  respect 
the  natural  articulations  of  the  thinking  of  each  individual. 
And,  rigidly  adhered  to,  it  induces  a  kind  of  mental  passivity 
through  the  repeated  snapping  of  the  spring  of  the  mind's 
movement.  Thus  it  frequently  has  the  result  of  mechaniz- 

1  Mind  Energy  (1920),  p.  181. 
100 


CREATION 

ing  living  individuals.  Surely  there  might  be  at  least  one 
day,  or  one  half  day,  in  the  week  when  each  pupil  could 
be  allowed  to  work  along  his  own  line  and  to  distribute  his 
time  as  he  thought  fit.  And  he  should  certainly  plan  out 
his  own  homework  time,  provided,  of  course,  that  the 
total  number  of  hours  does  not  exceed  that  which  is  suit- 
able to  his  age  and  bodily  health.  Yet  the  whole  tendency 
in  some  schools  at  present  is  in  the  direction  of  ear-marking 
every  hour  of  the  working  day  for  an  appointed  task,  so 
great  is  the  desire  for  mechanical  efficiency. 

How  frequently  the  fixed  distribution  of  time  inter- 
feres with  creative  processes  can  be  judged  from  the  re- 
ports of  university  students.  In  reply  to  a  definite  question, 
several  years  of  post-graduate  students  have  stated  that 
neither  during  their  school  life  nor,  in  most  cases,  during 
their  university  training  did  they  ever  have  time  for 
creative  literary  work.  It  is  true  that  they  had  to  write 
essays,  but  they  were  kept  so  busy  with  routine  work 
that  they  never  had  an  opportunity  of  delaying  the  writing 
of  the  essay  that  was  demanded  of  them  until  the  incubation 
period  was  over.  They  were  never  able  to  browse  on  a 
subject  long  enough  for  equilibrium  to  be  established  be- 
tween the  form  of  organi2Lation  and  the  data  to  be  in- 
corporated. And  it  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  they 
produced  mosaics  of  other  people's  views  rather  than 
organic  works  of  art.  Throughout  the  whole  educational 
system,  with  very  few  exceptions,  there  are  too  many  set 
lessons  and  lectures  ;  there  is  too  much  herd  teaching, 
and  too  little  time  for  individual  work  and  for  that  practice 
of  silence  which  is  the  prelude  of  all  truly  creative  work. 

The  tutorial  system  of  the  older  universities  is  a  striking 
exception,  and  affords  a  practical  proof,  if  any  were  needed, 
of  the  value  of  individual  work  and  of  creative  methods  in 
teaching.  Under  this  system  each  student  is  given  in- 
dividual help  and  guidance.    He  is  advised  by  his  tutor  to 

lOI 


I 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

attend  certain  lectures,  to  read  certain  books,  and  to  write 
certain  essays  ;  but  he  is  niaster  of  his  own  intellectual 
life,  and  can  plan  his  work  and  use  his  time  as  he  thinks  fit. 
He  is  not  the  slave  of  a  time-table,  but  is  free  to  develop 
from  within  at  his  own  rate  and  in  his  own  way. 

The  Dalton  plan^  of  education,  of  which  so  much  has 
recently  been  heard  in  America,  is  an  interesting  attempt 
to  use  similar  individual  methods  of  teaching  with  boys 
and  girls  of  school  age.  The  pupils  enter  into  a  contract 
to  do  so  much  work  in  each  subject  in  a  month,  but  they 
are  free  to  distribute  their  time  within  the  month  as  they 
think  fit.  The  school  is  arranged  in  subject  laboratories, 
to  which  the  children  have  free  access,  and  in  these  there 
is  a  clear  assignment  of  work  in  each  grade  of  that  subject. 
Careful  daily  records  are  kept  of  the  work  accomplished 
by  each  individual  and  each  form,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
month  there  is  usually  a  test.  The  advantages  gained  by 
doing  away  with  the  rigid  class  time-table  are  obvious. 
Each  pupil  can  proceed  at  his  own  rate  and  can  work  as  a 
free  agent.  He  can  co-operate  freely  with  others.  And 
when  the  impulse  comes  from  within  he  can  create. 

It  may  possibly  be  true  that  this  plan  puts  an  exaggerated 
emphasis  on  the  continual  need  for  individual  work  and 
foils  to  recognize  the  full  value  of  the  training  that  comes 
from  the  performance  of  tasks  in  common  with  other 
members  of  a  social  group.  Perhaps  a  mean  between  herd 
teaching  and  the  Dalton  plan  will  prove  to  be  what  is  re- 
quired for  most  pupils.  But,  in  any  case,  these  experiments 
have  certainly  shown  that  a  school  can  be  organized  so  that 
individual  work  is  the  rule  and  not  the  exception.  The 
old  belief  that  herd  teaching  is  a  practical  necessity  is, 
therefore,  exploded,  and  there  seems  no  practical  reason 
why  teachers  should  be  afraid  of  experimenting  in  the 
*  For  details  of  the  Dalton  plan  see  Times  Educational  Supple- 
menty  July  2,  9,  16,  23,  30,  and  August  6, 1921. 

102 


CREATION 

direction  of  allowing  their  pupils  more  frequent  oppor- 
tunities for  individual  and  creative  work. 

As  well  as  opportunities  for  creation,  routine  work  is, 
of  course,  also  necessary  ;  for  life  itself  is  impossible  with- 
out habit  and  without  the  stability  and  permanence  which 
habit  implies.  On  the  other  hand,  if  habits  become  too 
securely  established,  if  they  become  masters  when  they 
ought  to  be  servants,  they  hinder  the  power  of  adaptability 
to  new  circumstances,  which  is  the  essence  of  life,  and  pro- 
gress ceases.  What  seems  to  be  required,  then,  is  a  proper 
relation  between  creation  and  habit.  For  example,  to  ad- 
vocate the  complete  elimination  of  training  in  technique, 
in  the  teaching  of  an  art,  seems  to  be  unwarranted, 
not  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  value  of  the 
resulting  work  of  art,  but  also  judged  by  the  effect 
upon  the  life  and  character  of  the  artist.  There  must 
be  technical  training,  there  must  be  mechanical  pro- 
ficiency, but  this  must  always  be  subservient  to  the 
creative  impulse. 

^  No  one  has  realized  this  more  clearly  than  Professor 
Cizek  in  his  work  at  the  Vienna  School  of  Arts  and  Crafts. 
He  has  proved  practically  that  excellent  results  can  be  ob- 
tained in  any  art  work,  at  least  with  picked  children,  by. 
creative  methods  of  teaching  and  without  much  explicit 
technical  training.  Many  of  the  drawing  and  paintings  of 
his  pupils  which  have  recently  been  exhibited  in  England 
are  extraordinarily  alive  and  vigorous.  And  he  claims  that 
this  is  due  to  one  fundamental  difference  in  his  method 
as  compared  with  that  of  most  art  masters.  "  I  take  off  the 
lid,"  he  says,  "  and  other  art  masters  clap  the  lid  on."i 
Probably  he  would  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  should 
be  no  technical  training.  Many  of  the  drawings  exhibited 
are,  indeed,  quite  conventional.    But  his  work  shows  that 

1  F.  M.^ Wilson  :   The  Child  as  Artist.  (Conversations  with 
Professor  Cizek,  1920.) 


I 


|i 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

training  in  technique  may  be  almost  entirely  implicit,  and 
that  it  is  far  more  important  for  a  child  to  express,  however 
imperfectly,  what  is  within  him  than  it  is  for  him  to  pro- 
duce conventionally  correct  works  of  art. 

Many  practical  teachers,  who  would  not  go  so  far  as 
Cizek,  would  agree  that  technical  processes  should  only 
be  taught  when  the  pupils  have  felt  the  need  for  them 
through  partial  failure  to  express  themselves :  that  is,  they 
should  be  the  servants,  not  the  masters,  of  the  creative  im- 
pulse. For  example,  the  old  method  of  teaching  wood- 
work, in  which  the  so-called  grammar  of  the  art  was  first 
taught  before  the  pupils  were  allowed  to  exercise  any 
choice  in  regard  to  the  object  to  be  made,  is  now  somewhat 
discredited.  We  do  not  expect  a  child  to  learn  grammar 
before  he  has  learned  to  speak.  And  neither  should  we  ex- 
pect a  boy  to  learn  the  grammar  of  woodwork  before  he 
has  had  experience  in  trying  to  express  himself  in  this 
medium.  It  is,  therefore,  becoming  more  usual  for  a  boy 
to  be  allowed  to  choose  what  he  would  like  to  make  and  to 
be  taught  the  technical  processes  involved  in  relation  to  his 
purpose.  Of  course,  he  will  waste  more  wood  ;  and  the 
finished  product  may  not  be  so  near  mechanical  perfection 
as  it  would  have  been  if  he  had  been  drilled  in  the  technical 
processes  first.  But,  after  all,  it  is  the  effect  on  the  boy  and 
on  his  development,  and  not  the  value  of  the  finished 
wooden  product,  that  is  of  first  importance.  And  work 
in  which  there  is  a  proper  relation  between  habit  and 
creation  is  able  to  contribute  something  to  the  expansion 
of  an  individual's  personality.  It  is  also  accompanied  by 
joy,  for  joy  is  the  seal  which  Nature  sets  on  every  act  of 
creation. 

Philosophers  who  have  speculated  on  the  significance  of  life 
and  the  destiny  of  man  [says  Bergson]  have  not  sufficiently  re- 
marked that  Nature  has  taken  pains  to  give  us  notice  every  time 
this  destiny  is  accomplished ;  she  has  set  up  a  sign  which  apprises 

104 


m 


CREATION 

us  every  time  our  activity  is  in  full  expansion  ;  this  sign  is  joy. 
I  say  joy;  I  do  not  say  pleasure.  Pleasure,  in  point  of  fact,  is  no 
more  than  the  instrument  contrived  by  Nature  to  obtain  from  the 
individual  the  preservation  and  propagation  of  life;  it  gives  us  no 
information  concerning  the  direction  in  which  life  is  flung  for- 
ward. True  joy,  on  the  contrary,  is  always  an  emphatic  signal 
of  the  triumph  of  life .  . .  We  find  that  wherever  joy  is,  creation 
has  been,  and  that  the  richer  the  creation  the  deeper  the  joy.^ 

/  But  it  may  be  argued  that  there  are  some  children  in  our 
schools  who  are  incapable  of  creating  anything  of  real 
worth.  This  may  be  true  of  the  outward  products  ;  al- 
though the  number  of  such  children  will  probably  be 
greatly  reduced  when  the  newer  educational  methods  are 
more  widely  put  into  practice.  Suppose,  however,  that 
there  remain  a  few  children  who  are  incapable  of  artistic 
or  scientific  creations.  The  work  of  their  intellects  and  of 
their  hands  may  have  little  originality,  but  even  they  can 
create  in  an  atmosphere  of  freedom.  They  can  create 
character.    And  may  it  not  be  true,  as  Bergson  suggests, 

that  the  ultimate  reason  of  human  life  is  a  creation  which,  in 
distinction  from  that  of  the  artist  or  man  of  science,  can  be  pur- 
sued at  every  moment  by  all  men  alike  .  .  .  (namely)  the  creation 
of  self  by  self,  the  continual  enrichment  of  personality  by  elements 
which  it  does  not  draw  from  outside,  but  causes  to  spring  forth 
from  itself  ? 

f  If  it  be  so,  then  even  the  least  original  can  experience 
joy,  the  sign  of  the  fulfilment  of  human  destiny. 

^  Life  and  Consciousness  {Jlibbert  Journal,  October  191 1), 
pp.  41-2. 


105 


I 


i* 


liii 


CHAPTER   XI 

New  Methods  in  Teaching,   Co-operation 

IN  order  that  an  individual  may  expand  freely,  oppor- 
tunities for  social  co-operation  are  necessary  as  well  as 
for  creative  work.   The  two  principles  are,  indeed,  cor- 
relative, for  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  absolute  or  self- 
contained  individual.    Every  human  being  possesses  social 
instincts,  living  impulses  which  impel  him  to  seek  fellow- 
ship in  social  life.    And  if  these  have  insufficient  oppor- 
tunities of  expressing  themselves  he  will  never  attain  to 
full  development.  The  spoiled,  unruly  child  is  often  cited  • 
as  an  instance  of  the  dangers  of  too  much  freedom  ;   but 
the  truth  is  that  he  is  not  free  at  all,  nor  is  he  even  being 
prepared  for  freedom.   Certain  sides  of  his  nature  are  bemg 
consistently  repressed,  and  consequently  he  is  being  virarped. 
The  impulse  towards  the  protection  of  others  of  his  own 
kind,  who  are  perhaps  weaker  than  himself,  is  as  much  a 
part  of  his  real  nature  as  is  his  instinct  of  self-assertion  : 
and  if  there  are  no  opportunities  for  its  expression,  not  only 
will  he  be  less  happy,  but  he  will  also  be  less  free.   It  is  only 
through  full  membership  in  a  group  that  the  social  instincts 
of  the  individual  are  able  to  express  themselves,  and  his 
personality  is  consequently  enriched.    This  is  the  great 
paradoxical  law  of  individual  development.    "  Whosoever 
will  lose  his  life,  the  same  shall  save  it." 

In  the  past  not  only  universities,  but  many  schools,  have 
realized  the  educational  value  of  community  life.  The 
house  system  in  boarding-schools,  and  the  recent  emphasis 
on  games,  are  expressions  of  this  realization.  But,  too  fre- 
quently, the  social  life  of  a  school  is  almost  entirely  separated 
from  its  academic  work  -,  and  although  co-operation  is  en- 
couraged on  the  playing-fields,  yet  the  giving  of  help  in  the 
class-room  is  regarded  as  a  deadly  sin.  There  each  pupil  is 
encouraged  to  think  only  of  himself  and  of  his  develop- 

io6 


CO-OPERATION 

/  ment.   In  short,  the  principle  of  competitive  individualism 
reigns  supreme. 

But  it  is  now  beginning  to  be  realized  that  if  children 
are  to  have  that  clear  guidance  in  the  art  of  living  which 
will  help  them  to  win  for  themselves  social  freedom  there 
must  not  be  this  confusion  between  their  work  and  their 
play.  The  same  principle  of  fellowship  must  govern  both. 
They  must  learn  to  work  as  a  group  as  well  as  play  as  a 
team.  Group  methods  of  teaching  are,  therefore,  begin- 
ning to  be  tried  in  many  schools. 

Group-teaching  is  not,  of  course,  the  same  thing  as 
class-teaching.  A  collection  of  individuals  all  simul- 
taneously pursuing  a  common  task,  imposed  on  them  by  a 
teacher,  certainly  form  a  crowd,  but  they  do  not  neces- 
sarily constitute  a  social  group.  The  members  of  a  group 
are  united  by  a  common  purpose.  They  need  not  all  be 
doing  the  same  thing  at  the  same  time  and  at  the  same  rate. 
They  may  be  doing  different  things  according  to  their 
ability  and  interests,  but  they  must  be  doing  them  for  a 
common  purpose.  Consider,  for  example,  the  production 
of  a  group-model,  or  a  composite  picture,  say,  of  a  ferm- 
yard.  Suppose  each  little  child  chooses  how  he  would  like 
to  help,  or  what  objects  he  would  like  to  make.  Then  he 
settles  to  do  his  bit,  inspired  by  the  vague  feeling  that  he  is 
taking  part  in  a  bigger  task  than  would  have  been  possible 
without  the  co-operation  of  his  fellows.  If  he  wanders 
from  his  particular  duty,  or  if  he  does  not  produce  his  best 
work,  then  to  some  extent  he  spoils  the  work  of  the  whole 
group.  Of  what  use  is  a  farmyard  without  a  cow,  or,  in- 
deed, with  a  cow  that  is  unrecognizable  ?  His  member- 
ship in  a  group  is  thus  a  means  of  inspiring  him  to  greater 
efforts  to  express  himself.  And  consequently  co-operation 
with  others  for  a  single  end  does  not  entail  a  diminution, 
but  rather  an  accession,  of  power  to  each  individual.  At 
the  same  time  it  provides  a  unique  social  training. 

107 


\m 


m 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

The  case  is  otherwise  with  a  class  of  children  who  have 
no  common  end  in  view  but  who  happen  to  be  contiguous 
in  space,  and  are  engaged,  say,  in  the  repetition  of  poetry. 
The  same  task  is  imposed  on  all,  without  re^rd  to  in- 
dividual interests,  and  there  is  consequently  little  spon- 
taneity in  the  work.  There  is  also  only  the  dimmest  realiza- 
tion of  social  responsibility.  Nothing  much  happens  to  the 
work  if  the  individual  relaxes  his  efforts,  or  even  if  he  stops 
altogether.  In  the  shadow  of  the  herd  most  of  the  children 
are  therefore  lulled  into  a  kind  of  passivity  from  which 
they  only  awake  at  the  direct  instigation  of  an  outside 
authority — the  driver  of  the  herd.  Of  course,  there  are 
occasions  when  there  is  a  strong  emotional  appeal  and  the 
individual  receives  inspiration  through  being  a  member  of 
a  large  crowd,  all  engaged  in  the  same  task — in  unison 
choral  singing,  for  example.  But  collective  or  herd  teach- 
ing alone  is  not  enough,  for  it  neither  provides  sufficient 
scope  for  the  expression  of  individuality  nor  does  it  give 
adequate  social  training.  What  each  pupil  needs  is  en- 
couragement to  express  all  the  impulses  that  are  within 
him,  both  individual  and  social  ;  and  this  can  be  done  most 
harmoniously  by  giving  him  opportunities  to  create  in  the  , 
service  of  a  group. 

In  nursery  and  infant  schools,  where  the  work  is  re- 
latively discursive,  there  is  little  difficulty  in  providing 
sufficient  opportunities  for  social  co-operation  between  the 
children  themselves.  If  the  equipment  is  of  the  right  kind, 
the  provision  of  the  mid-morning  meal  in  school  or  the 
tidying  of  a  room  can  be  the  occasion  on  which  the  mem- 
bers of  a  small  group  learn  to  fulfil  different  functions  in  the 
service  of  the  whole.  And  the  production  of  a  group  toy, 
such  as  a  cardboard  Noah's  Ark,  can  be  used  for  something 
far  more  important  than  the  mere  representation  of  the  ani- 
mals. It  can  also  be  an  occasion  for  social  training,  and  can 
lead  to  an  implicit  recognition  of  the  principle  of  fellowship. 

1 08 


CO-OPERATION 

At  later  stages  the  problem  becomes  more  complicated 
on  account  of  the  standardizing  of  work  and  the  increasing 
rigidity  of  time-tables  and  syllabuses.  There  are,  of  course, 
special  opportunities  for  co-operation  in  the  preparation 
for  school  parties,  concerts,  and  sports,  or  during  week- 
ends spent  in  camp.  And,  in  addition,  in  special  subjects 
there  will  always  be  occasions  for  group  work  which  can 
be  seized  by  teachers  who  believe  in  the  principle  of  fellow- 
ship in  education.  For  example,  the  teacher  of  literature 
has  his  opportunity  in  the  preparation  for  the  acting  of  a 
play  ;  the  teacher  of  history  in  the  corporate  research 
necessary  for  representing  a  historical  tableau ;  the  teacher 
of  geography  in  the  production  of  a  relief  map.  In  science, 
too,  there  are  frequent  opportunities  for  group  work. 
Suppose  a  number  of  pupils  are  finding  the  solubility  of  a 
certain  substance  in  water.  They  can  divide  the  work 
among  themselves,  different  pupils  finding  the  solubility 
at  different  temperatures,  so  that,  as  a  group,  they  have  the 
data  for  a  rough  solubility  curve.  Each  will  probably  be 
encouraged  to  greater  care  and  accuracy  through  the 
realization  that  his  result  will  affect  the  work  of  the  whole 
group.  In  an  actual  case  in  which  this  was  tried  two  pupils 
who  were  jointly  responsible  for  finding  the  solubility  at  a 
certain  temperature  asked  to  be  allowed  to  repeat  their  ex- 
periment when  they  saw  how  their  result  appeared  to  spoil 
the  symmetry  of  the  curve  obtained  by  the  rest  of  the  group. 
The  process  involved  in  the  repetition  of  the  experiment 
was  long  and  somewhat  tedious,  and  the  request  could, 
therefore,  very  fairly  be  interpreted  as  a  clear  indication  of 
a  real  feeling  of  social  responsibility. 

There  are,  of  course,  some  subjects  which  from  their 
very  nature  provide  better  opportunities  for  systematic 
social  training  than  others.  Games,  handwork,  gardening, 
orchestral  music,  choral  singing,  dancing,  eurhythmies, 
dramatic  art,  and  domestic  science  seem  to  be  among  the 

109 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

best ;  and  this  is  surely  an  added  reason  for  their  inclusion 
in  the  curriculum  both  of  the  secondary  and  of  the  con- 
tinuation school. 

What  can  be  more  gratifying  [asks  M.  Jacques  Dalcrozc]  than 
to  interpret  freely,  and  in  an  individual  manner,  the  feelings  that 
actuate  us,  .  .  .  of  allying  eu rhythmically  our  means  of  expres- 
sion with  those  of  others,  to  group,  magnify,  and  give  style  to  the 
emotions  inspired  by  music  and  poetry  ?  And  this  gratification 
.  .  .  cannot  but  contribute  to  the  raising  of  the  instincts  of  the 
race  and  the  permeation  of  the  altruistic  quahties  necessary  for 
the  estabhshment  of  a  healthy  social  order.^ 

Subjects  of  this  kind,  which  give  opportunities  for  the 
expression  of  individuality  and  for  group  work,  have  cer- 
tainly an  added  claim  for  inclusion  in  the  curriculum.  But 
even  in  these  cases  the  value  of  the  social  training  given 
depends  largely  on  the  way  in  which  the  group  is  organized. 
If  the  duties  of  each  member  are  imposed  on  him  from 
without  there  will  be  comparatively  little  real  social  train- 
ing, whereas  '\{  the  organization  of  the  group  comes  from 
within  the  educational  value  of  the  work  to  the  individuals 
is  of  an  entirely  different  order. 
I  There  are,  then,  two  kinds  of  organization  of  a  group  : 
the  one  mechanical,  the  other  vital  ;  the  one  the  result  of  a 
plan  in  the  mind  of  an  outsider,  the  members  of  the  group 
being  little  more  than  machines  to  execute  his  purposes,  the 
other  effected  by  the  collaboration  of  the  individuals  com- 
posing the  group.  An  illustration  will  perhaps  make  this 
difference  clear.  A  teacher  and  a  small  group  of  domestic 
science  pupils  had  the  privilege  of  preparing  supper  for  all 
the  boys  and  girls  in  attendance  at  an  evening  club.  The 
teacher  had  a  definite  plan  of  action,  had  purchased  the 
necessary  materials,  and  proceeded  to  distribute  the  work 
mechanically.  There  was  no  discussion  of  the  menu,  or  of 

^  Rh^thm^  Music ^  and  Education  (192 1),  pp.  219-220. 

110 


A'. 


CO-OPERATION 

the  work  to  be  done,  no  volunteers  were  asked  for,  and  the 
result  was  that  no  single  pupil  had  any  clear  idea  of  the  re- 
lation that  existed  between  his  particular  job  and  the  com- 
pleted task.  For  example,  one  girl  was  chopping  walnuts, 
and  another  dates.  Neither  realized  that  she  had  any  con- 
nection with  the  other  until  the  intention  of  the  teacher 
to  make  nut  and  date  sandwiches  was  discovered  later. 
This  is  really  not  co-operation,  and  obviously  such  work 
does  not  provide  the  kind  of  social  training  that  is  most 
valuable.  The  case  would  have  been  different  if  the 
teacher  had  allowed  the  pupils  to  form  a  kind  of  committee 
and  perhaps  appoint  a  leader  from  among  themselves,  had 
given  them  money  to  spend,  had  allowed  them  to  discuss 
the  work  and  organize  themselves  for  the  doing  of  it. 
They  would,  no  doubt,  have  asked  her  help  and  guidance, 
but  that  is  a  totally  different  thing  from  having  her  ready- 
made  plan  imposed  on  them.  Of  course,  if  the  group  were 
organized  in  this  w^y  something  important  might  have 
been  forgotten,  the  work  might  not  have  been  carried  out 
with  quite  the  same  degree  of  precision,  and  the  resulting 
supper  might  not  have  been  so  well  arranged,  but  the 
social  training  received  would  have  been  much  more 
valuable. 

'  Between  these  two  extremes  there  are,  of  course,  in- 
numerable gradations.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  it 
will  always  be  possible  for  a  group  to  be  organized  entirely 
from  within.  It  will  depend  on  the  nature  of  the  work  to 
be  done,  and  on  the  social  training  previously  received  by 
the  pupils.  There  may  be  occasions  when  the  teacher  has 
to  interfere  to  prevent  an  unfair  distribution  of  unpleasant 
tasks,  but  this  is  not  likely  to  occur  often  ;  and  the  more 
successfully  the  pupils  have  been  taught  to  co-operate  in 
their  earlier  years,  the  less  likely  it  is  that  it  will  occur  in  a 
form  with  which  the  children  themselves  cannot  deal. 
Vital,  as  opposed  to  mechanical,  organization  of  group 

III 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

work  is  certainly  the  ideal  at  which  to  aim,  for  it  alone 
provides  for  the  full  development  of  each  individual  in  the 
service  of  the  group.  Membership  in  a  mechanically 
organized  group  may  lead  to  the  realisation  of  the  neces- 
sity for  service,  but  it  will  also  result  in  the  repression  of  the 
individual.  But  membership  in  a  vitally  organized  group 
offers  combined  opportunities  for  the  expansion  of  in- 
dividuality and  for  social  service.  Consequently  it  alone  is 
an  adequate  preparation  for  the  freedom  and  responsibilities 
of  adult  life. 


112 


CHAPTER    XII 

New  Methods  in  Teaching,    Intuition 

IN  order  that  an  individual  may  express  himself  fully 
and  attain  to  a  measure  of  real  freedom,  his  education 
must  not  only  provide  him  with  opportunities  for  crea- 
tive work  and  for  social  co-operation,  but  must  also 
gradually  make  possible  a  direct  apprehension  of  life  it- 
self. The  mere  inclusion  of  such  "  life "  subjects  as 
biology,  literature,  history,  and  philosophy  in  the  curri- 
culum is  not  enough.  The  methods  employed  in  their 
study  must  be  appropriate  for  the  apprehension  of  dura- 
tions, of  life  itself  as  opposed  to  its  visual  symbols,  of  spirit 
as  opposed  to  its  material  forms.  In  short,  they  must  be 
such  as  to  encourage  intuition  on  the  part  of  the  pupils. 

Processes  of  intuition  cannot,  of  course,  be  directly 
manipulated  by  any  teacher.  Like  creations,  they  arise 
spontaneously  out  of  the  individual's  own  experience.  The 
barriers  which  separate  individuals  from  one  another,  and 
from  the  other  spiritual  forces  in  the  universe,  sometimes 
appear  to  be  momentarily  withdrawn,  and  there  may  re- 
sult in  the  mind  of  one  individual  an  immediate  sympathy 
with,  and  understanding  of,  another,  or  of  life  itself,  which 
could  not  have  become  possible  in  any  other  way.  Although 
these  processes  can  no  more  be  controlled  from  without 
than  can  creative  processes,  it  yet  remains  true  that  much 
might  be  done  by  the  educator  to  encourage  this  direct 
apprehension  of  the  living,  even  if  it  were  only  in  the 
direction  of  removing  the  artificial  conditions  which  now 
exist,  and  which  frequently  prevent  the  natural  develop- 
ment of  a  child's  powers  of  intuition. 

Our  educational  system  in  the  past  has  laid  a  mistaken 
emphasis  on  book-learning.  It  has  been  too  narrowly  in- 
tellectual, and  has  tended  to  interpose  other  men's  snap- 
shots of  life  between  the  minds  of  the  pupils  and  life  itself. 
It  has  been  individualistic  and  mechanical,  and  conse- 

113  H 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

quently  has  tended  both  to  separate  and  mechanize  living 
individuals,  and  thus  to  raise  artificial  barriers  between 
each  one  of  them  and  living  creative  evolution.  It  is  quite 
obvious  that  the  intuitive  grasp  of  life  is  more  likely  to  be 
reached  in  direct  contact  with  actual  situations  than  it  is 
through  the  study  of  other  men's  solutions  of  the  problems 
of  life ;  and  the  mistaken  emphasis  on  book-learning  has 
not  made  the  intuition  of  life  easier,  but  vastly  more  diffi- 
cult. The  recent  revolt  against  the  intellectualist  view  of 
education  will,  therefore,  in  itself  do  much  to  remove 
those  general  conditions  which  in  the  past  have  tended  to 
the  neglect  of  intuition. 

This  revolt  has  already  indirectly  affected  the  methods 
employed  in  the  early  teaching  of  Nature  study.  The 
elementary  facts  of  botany  and  biology  are  no  longer 
learned  from  books,  diagrams,  and  pictures,  but  are  dis- 
covered through  direct  contact  with  growing  plants  and 
animals.  The  children  have  a  garden  in  which  they  work  ; 
they  are  encouraged  to  keep  pets  ;  and  thus  the  general 
conditions  are  such  as  to  make  possible  a  more  direct  and 
sympathetic  understanding  of  vegetable  and  animal  life. 

In  the  old  days  children  had  few  opportunities  in  school 
for  appreciating  plants  and  animals  as  living  creatures. 
The  lamb  that  followed  Mary  to  school  was  quite  out  of 
its  element.  There  was  no  place  for  it  there — it  was 
"  against  the  rule."  For  in  school  the  facts  of  nature  were 
learned  from  books,  or,  at  best,  from  pictures  and  preserved 
specimens.  The  nature  lessons  were  rightly  termed  object 
lessons  ;  for  in  them  the  pupil  learned  to  distort  developing 
beings  into  static  objects.  The  living  animal  was  too  dis- 
turbing and  unpredictable  a  factor  to  be  introduced  into 
the  mechanical  system  that  prevailed. 

But  now  conditions  are  changing.  It  is  being  increas- 
ingly realized  that  little  children  are  most  truly  educated 
by  being  allowed  to  participate  in  the  concrete  and  pur- 

"4 


INTUITION 

posive  occupations  of  home  and  country  life.  In  most 
schools  for  young  children,  time  is  therefore  naturally 
spent  on  the  cultivation  of  plants  and  animals  ;  and  the 
pupils  are  thus  provided  with  frequent  opportunities  for  the 
direct  observation  of  the  phenomena  of  life.  The  result  is 
that  in  many  cases  there  gradually  develops  a  sympathetic 
understanding  of  living  beings  and  a  real  feeling  for  nature. 
As  Dr.  Montessori  puts  it :  "A  sort  of  correspondence 
arises  between  the  child's  soul  and  the  lives  that  are  de- 
veloped under  his  care."  In  illustration  of  this  she  quotes 
the  case  of  some  children  who  had  tended  a  climbing  rose- 
tree,  watering  it  regularly  for  a  long  time  from  their  little 
watering-pots.  "  One  clay,"  she  says,  "  I  found  them 
seated  on  the  ground,  all  in  a  circle,  around  a  splendid  red 
rose  which  had  bloomed  in  the  night :  silent  and  calm, 
literally  immersed  in  contemplation."*  They  were  willing 
and  ready  to  be  taught  something  of  the  mystery  of  life 
from  the  rose.  If  their  unconscious  impulses  had  been 
translated  into  the  language  of  conscious  thought  they 
might  have  been  expressed  in  Tennyson's  words : 

Little  flower — but  if  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  shall  know  what  God  and  man  is.* 

Such  simple,  and  it  may  be  inarticulate,  acts  of  contem- 
plation are  the  first  steps  in  the  acquisition  of  a  true  philo- 
sophy ;  for  any  one  of  them  may  bring  in  its  train  the 
realization  that  living  beings  give  back  more  than  they  re- 
ceive, and  that  life  is  essentially  creative.  But  they  are  only 
possible  when  the  first  condition  for  the  intuition  of  life, 
namely,  that  of  direct  and  sympathetic  contact  with  the 
living,  has  been  fulfilled. 

A  second  condition  needs  also  to  be  explicitly  recognized, 

*  The  Montessori  Method  ( 1 9 1 2),  pp.  15  8-9. 

•  Flower  in  the  Crannied  Wall. 

115 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

more  especially  at  later  stages  when  the  nature  work  be- 
comes less  discursive  and  more  scientific.  Not  only  must 
the  individual's  contact  with  plants  and  animals  be  direct^ 
but  it  must  also  be  continuous  if  it  is  to  contribute  anything 
to  his  philosophy  of  life.  One  snapshot,  however  com- 
pletely analyzed,  is  useless  ;  for  it  fixes  what  is  really 
changing,  it  spatializes  what  is  really  unfolding  in  time. 
When  teachers  of  "  life  "  subjects  realize  that  the  main 
object  of  their  teaching  should  be  to  encourage  their  pupils 
to  appreciate  living  beings  as  durations,  and  thus  gradually 
to  make  possible  a  direct  intuition  of  the  current  of  life, 
both  their  syllabuses  and  their  methods  will  be  profoundly 
modified.  In  botany,  for  example,  the  treatment  will  not 
be  so  analytic  as  it  frequently  has  been  in  the  past.  Less 
emphasis  will  be  placed  on  classification,  on  the  mere 
labelling  of  a  plant  and  its  parts,  and  more  on  its  life  his- 
tory, the  phenomena  of  growth  and  reproduction,  and  the 
functions  of  the  parts.  Any  subdivisions  of  the  subject 
which  cut  across  the  continuity  of  development,  no  matter 
how  useful  these  may  be  to  the  specialist,  are  not  of  much 
importance  to  pupils,  whose  interest  in  the  study  is,  and 
should  be,  of  a  more  general  nature. 

In  addition  to  these  horizontal  divisions  within  a  sub- 
ject which  frequently  prevent  the  appreciation  of  living 
beings  as  durations,  there  are  also  vertical  divisions  which 
almost  completely,  and  therefore  artificially,  separate  the 
"  life  "  subjects  from  one  another.  And  these  also  must 
be  bridged  in  order  that  the  apprehension  of  the  process  of 
evolution  may  become  possible.  There  must  be  oppor- 
tunities for  comparing  the  facts  of  plant,  animal,  and 
human  life,  and  for  relating  those  distinguishable  and 
divergent  lines  of  evolution  which  appear  to  issue  from  a 
common  original  creating  impulse.  For  example,  the  find- 
ings of  biology  and  history  must  be  co-ordinated  if  the 
study  of  either  subject  is  to  contribute  its  full  share  to  the 

ii6 


INTUITION 

growth  of  the  pupil's  philosophy  of  life.  Indeed,  any 
spatializing  of  a  duration,  or  any  analysis  of  life,  which 
hides  from  us  the  continuity  of  evolution  must  never  be 
regarded  as  a  final  interpretation.  The  end  at  which  to  aim 
is  always  that  of  the  direct  apprehension  of  the  continuity, 
the  grasping  of  life  sub  specie  durationis. 

The  mere  acceptance  of  this  aim  would  naturally  affect 
the  subject-matter  and  the  methods  used  in  the  teaching  of 
history — a  study  which  becomes  supremely  important  dur- 
ing the  period  of  adolescence.  In  the  first  place,  it  would 
emphasize  the  need  for  world  history.  If  it  be  true  that 
the  vertical  divisions  between  botany,  biology,  and  history 
have  to  be  bridged  for  the  grasping  of  the  evolutionary 
process,  it  is  equally  true  that  the  geographical  and  racial 
divisions  of  mankind  must  not  be  regarded  as  absolute,  but 
merely  as  indicative  of  divergent  lines  of  human  evolution. 
Consequently  the  history  of  any  one  nation — no  matter 
how  great  that  nation  may  be — is  not  enough  to  enable 
any  pupil  to  grasp,  even  vaguely,  the  continuity  of  man's 
evolution.  For  nations  rise  and  fall  j  empires  flourish  and 
pass  away  ;  but  the  movement  of  human  history  remains. 
It  endures  by  changing.  And  what  is  needed  for  its  appre- 
ciation is  the  study  of  world-history,  the  history  of  man's 
struggles  against  untoward  conditions,  of  his  organizations 
of  society,  of  his  forms  of  government,  and  of  the  develop- 
ment of  his  understanding  of  the  universe  in  which  he 
dwells. 

If  specialization  in  the  history  o(  one  nation  fails  to  give 
insight  into  the  nature  of  human  evolution,  what  can  be 
said  of  the  still  narrower  specialization  on  one  period  in  the 
history  of  that  nation  .?  Yet  it  is  not  unusual  to  find  pupils 
who  have  passed  through  secondary  schools  whose  study 
of  English  history  has  begun  at  the  Norman  Conquest 
and  petered  out  at  the  accession  of  Queen  Victoria.  There 
are  even  some  whose  studies  have  never  passed  beyond  the 

117 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

time  of  the  Tudors.  Whenever  they  have  reached  that 
stage  they  have  been  switched  back  to  the  year  1066, 
perhaps  owing  to  the  imminence  of  an  examination  con- 
ducted on  the  false  assumption  that  one  period  can  be  cut 
off  from  its  before  and  after  and  treated  as  a  self-contained 
whole.  It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  sufficiently  realized, 
either  by  historians  or  by  practical  teachers,  that  the  past, 
as  past,  is  dead  ;  it  lives  only  in  its  union  with  the  present ; 
and  consequently  any  study  of  history  which  begins  and 
ends  in  the  past  is,  as  it  were,  cut  off  from  the  very  source 
of  its  life.  It  is  on  this  account  that  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells' 
attempt  to  write  a  world-history  marks  such  a  great  ad- 
vance in  the  right  direction,  for  he  writes  always  from  the 
point  of  view  of  evolution.  He  may  be  inaccurate  in  de- 
tails, but  at  least  he  avoids  the  fatal  mistake  made  by  so 
many  historians,  that  of  eliminating  duration,  and  distort- 
ing a  living  creative  evolution  into  a  series  of  fixed  events 
regarded  as  outside  one  another.  He  puts  first  things  first : 
he  sees  history  iuh  specie  durationis  ;  and  in  the  nature  of 
things  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  corrections  and  retouch- 
ings and  a  gradual  approach  to  a  more  perfect  representa- 
tion of  the  movement  of  human  history. 

It  may,  however,  be  argued  that  there  is  not  sufficient 
time  in  school  for  the  study  of  history,  and  especially  of 
world-history,  right  up  to  the  present  time.  Of  course,  the 
treatment  cannot  be  detailed  ;  but  surely  much  that  has 
been  taught  in  the  past,  for  example,  details  of  army  cam- 
paigns and  of  route  marches,  could  safely  be  omitted  if  only 
some  adequate  selective  principle  could  be  discovered. 
And  in  the  light  of  the  doctrine  of  creative  evolution  that 
principle  is  not  difficult  to  decipher.  Only  those  events 
that  mark  the  design  of  a  movement  are  really  important. 
Only  those  things  that  have  a  connection  with  what  has 
gone  before,  and  that  modify  the  things  that  come  after — 
those  events  which  throw  light  on  the  evolutionary  process 

118 


INTUITION 

and  consequently  on  the  present — need  to  be  emphasized. 
As  Keatinge  puts  it  :  "  The  chapters  that  throw  no  light 
on  the  problems  of  modern  life  and  afford  no  assistance  to 
the  contemporary  citizen  must  be  relegated  to  the  rubbish 
heap."^  A  spring-cleaning  conducted  on  this  plan  would 
result  in  a  considerable  reduction  of  the  burden  usually 
imposed  on  the  pupils'  memories.  At  the  same  time,  it 
would  make  possible  a  wider  survey  of  human  history  and 
a  truer  sense  of  time-perspective,  both  of  which  are  essen- 
tial for  the  appreciation  of  history  sub  specie  durationis. 

One  other  thing  is  necessary  for  the  apprehension  of 
human  evolution  :  more  emphasis  must  be  laid  on  the  inner 
changes  in  the  mind  of  man  and  less  on  outward  events. 
The  evolution  of  man's  understanding  of  the  universe,  the 
growth  of  the  sciences  and  the  arts,  the  changes  in  his  atti- 
tude towards  plants,  animals,  and  his  fellow-men,  the 
evolution  of  his  spiritual  experience  and  his  religion,  are 
more  significant  than  the  changes  in  customs  and  institu- 
tions to  which  they  eventually  give  rise.  Of  course,  it  may 
be  argued  that  the  study  of  the  movements  of  human 
thought  and  endeavour  belongs  to  philosophy,  and  lies  out- 
side the  scope  of  history.  But  it  is  this  artificial  separation/ 
of  history  from  biology,  on  the  one  hand,  and  philosophy, 
on  the  other,  that  has  resulted  in  unreality  and  confusion . 
in  the  teaching  both  of  history  and  of  religion.  It  is  im-  ( 
perative  that  the  broad  movements  of  human  conscious-  ' 
ness  should  be  co-ordinated  with  history  in  the  narrower 
sense  of  the  term.  The  evolution  of  man  is  incompre- 
hensible apart  from  his  inner  life  ;  and  the  more  we  can 
penetrate  the  outer  shell  of  events  to  the  thoughts,  ideals, 
feelings,  and  aspirations  which  lie  at  the  centre,  the  more 
likely  it  is  that  a  direct  intuition  of  evolution  will  become 
possible. 

The  acceptance  of  the  new  view  of  history  would  not 
^  Adams :   The  New  Teaching  (191 8),  p.  263. 

119 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

only  affect  the  selection  of  the  subject-matter  to  be  treated, 
but  would  also  tend  to  modify  the  methods  used  in  teaching. 
The  same  two  conditions  that  had  to  be  recognized  in  the 
teaching  of  biology  will  need  to  be  taken  into  account  in 
the  teaching  of  history.  In  the  first  place,  there  will  need 
to  be  a  direct  and  sympathetic  understanding  of  human 
individuals  and  of  social  groups.  The  student  must  be  able 
to  enter  into  the  inner  life  of  the  people  or  the  group  that 
he  interprets.  In  the  early  stages  the  use  of  dramatic 
methods  would  be  a  help  to  this  end.  By  talcing  part  in  the 
representation  of  historic  scenes  the  pupils  may  be  helped 
to  enter  sympathetically  into  their  inner  meaning  and  into 
the  kind  of  life  lived  by  the  people  of  the  period.  Later, 
the  experiments  in  government  made  by  the  school  com- 
munity provide  opportunities  for  the  apprehension  of  the 
life  of  a  social  group  from  within.  For  example,  if  there  is 
a  school  parliament  the  children's  direct  experience  of  its 
problems  and  functions,  and  of  its  evolution,  would  be 
most  illuminating  if  it  could  only  be  properly  co-ordinated 
with  the  study  of  history. 

In  the  second  place,  the  methods  employed  in  teaching 
must  be  such  as  to  preserve  the  continuity  of  the  evolu- 
'  tionary  process.  There  must  be  co-ordination  of  the  past 
with  the  present.  Every  opportunity  that  presents  itself 
of  effecting  this  co-ordination  in  greater  measure  must  be 
seized  if  the  teaching  of  history  is  ever  to  be  more  success- 
ful than  it  has  been  in  the  past.  Visits  to  places  of  historic 
interest,  the  use  of  contemporary  records  of  events,  dis- 
cussions of  traditions,  customs,  and  superstitions  that  still 
remain,  but  that  really  belong  to  an  earlier  period,  can  be 
used  to  this  end,  if  only  the  teacher  is  ready  to  teach  history 
backwards  sometimes  as  well  as  forwards.  But  to  do  this 
the  teacher  himself  must  have  a  very  firm  grasp  of  the 
continuity — z  grasp  which  is  dependent  on  an  adequate 
philosophical,  as  well  as  historical,  training,  and  also  on  the 

120 


INTUITION 

possession  of  some  degree  of  the  artist's  power  of  intuition. 
It  is  easy  to  advocate  the  employment  of  methods  of  teach- 
ing calculated  to  help  children  to  grasp  human  evolution, 
but  if  these  are  adopted  by  teachers  who  have  never  them- 
selves appreciated  history  as  a  duration,  they  will  certainly 
be  used  without  insight,  and  consequently  without  result. 
For  example,  it  is  not  of  the  slightest  use  to  fix  the  syllabus 
and  to  outline  the  precise  methods  that  should  be  employed 
in  the  teaching  of  Old  Testament  scripture  in  order  that 
some  understanding  of  the  growth  of  man's  spiritual  ex- 
perience may  result,  if  the  teacher  who  is  going  to  do  the 
work  has  adopted,  either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the 
crude  philosophical  interpretation  which  regards  the  sacred 
books  as  literally  inspired  and  written  by  the  hand  of  God. 
All  the  different  views  concerning  God  and  man,  however 
inconsistent  they  may  be,  are  to  him  equally  true.  And  if 
he  himself  regards  them  as  sections  of  a  mosaic  of  static 
and  absolute  truth  he  will  never  help  anyone  else  to  appre- 
ciate them  as  a  record  of  the  evolution  of  man's  under- 
standing of  God.  It  is,  therefore,  of  supreme  importance 
that  the  teacher  of  a  "  life  "  subject  should  not  only  know 
his  subject,  but  should  himself  be  in  possession  of  an  ade- 
quate philosophy  of  life. 

Let  us  now  suppose  that  the  selection  of  the  subject- 
matter,  the  guidance  given,  and  the  methods  employed  in 
the  teaching  of  biology,  history,  and  philosophy  are  such 
as  to  make  possible  the  appreciation  of  life  as  a  duration. 
Will  it  necessarily  follow  that  the  pupils  will  be  able  to  use 
the  intuitive  method  of  apprehension  ?  Or  will  they  re- 
quire special  training  in  the  appreciation  of  durations  in 
domains  where  the  range  of  facts  is  not  so  extensive,  and 
where,  consequently,  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  intuition 
are  not  so  overwhelming  ? 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  there  are  certain  studies,  other 
than  those  of  living  plants  and  animals,  which  call  for  the 

121 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

use  of  intuition,  and  which,  properly  taught,  could  be  used 
to  provide  opportunities  for  the  practice  of  appreciation. 
These  are  the  arts,  particularly  the  arts  of  music,  poetry, 
and  the  drama ;  and  one  reason  why  these  should  be  in- 
cluded in  the  curriculum  is  that  by  means  of  them  there 
can  be  acquired  that  skill  in  the  use  of  the  method  of  intui- 
tion, which  is  so  necessary  for  the  growth  of  the  individual's 
understanding  of  life.  Deprived  of  artistic  training,  a  boy 
or  girl  will  probably  lack  one  of  the  essential  means  of  ap- 
proach to  wisdom,  namely,  a  certain  kind  of  insight  into 
durations.  And  no  training  in  scientific  method  or  logic 
will  make  good  this  omission. 

The  appreciation  of  rhythm,  for  example,  involves 
something  other  than  analysis,  namely,  the  carrying  over 
of  each  member  of  the  series  into  the  next,  so  that  the 
series  becomes  an  indivisible  whole.  It  involves  the  intui- 
itive  grasp  of  a  continuity,  and  consequently  can  be  a 
valuable  preparation  for  the  intuition  of  life  itself,  which 
also  is  rhythmical  in  its  nature.  No  one  has  realized  more 
clearly  than  M.  Jacques  Dalcroze  the  possibilities  that 
exist  in  this  direction  in  musical  and  rhythmic  education. 
"  To  contrive,  by  means  of  a  special  training,  to  enable  the 
child  to  sense  distinctly  the  nature  of  its  instinctive  corporal 
rhythms,  and  of  their  divers  successions,  is,"  according  to 
him,  "  to  render  him  capable  of  sensing  life  itself  in  a  more 
freely  emotive  spirit."  ^  Those  who  regard  eurhythmies  as 
a  system  of  physical  training  have  not  understood  in  the 
least  the  educational  significance  of  the  work  of  M.  Dal- 
croze. It  is  true  that  he  asserts  that  the  employment  of  his 
methods  would  make  for  bodily  health,  but  over  and  over 
again  he  emphasizes  the  value  of  the  training  given  in 
musical  appreciation.  And  he  claims  that  the  opportunities 
provided  under  his  system  for  the  practice  of  intuition 
are  complementary  to  the  intellectual  training  given  in 

^  Rhythm,  Music ,  and  Education  (192 1),  p.  243. 

122 


INTUITION 

most  other  school  subjects.  Training  in  intellectual 
analysis  and  training  in  the  appreciation  of  durations  are 
both  necessary  for  the  full  development  of  human  beings. 

The  same  kind  of  practice  in  intuition  can,  of  course,  be 
given  through  poetry  or  dramatic  art.  This  is  being  in- 
creasingly realized  by  teachers  of  literature,  who  are  now 
beginning  to  aim  at  the  more  direct  cultivation  of  enjoy- 
ment. The  recent  revolt  against  annotated  textbooks  is 
evidence  of  the  new  realization  that  appreciation,  and  not 
analysis,  is  what  is  needed.  The  teacher  no  longer  follows 
the  old  plan  of  hacking  a  poem  into  pieces.  "  It  is  abso- 
lutely essential,"  says  Benson,  "  that  something  should  be 
read  fast  enough  to  give  some  sense  of  continuity  and  range 
and  horizon."^  Analysis  is  not  enough.  Indeed,  in  some 
cases  it  may  even  prevent  appreciation.  What  is  required 
is  a  grasp  of  the  continuity  of  the  poem,  an  intuition  of  the 
indivisible  movement  of  the  author's  thought.  And  the 
appreciation  of  a  poem  is  therefore,  from  one  point  of  view, 
an  exercise  in  the  method  of  intuition,  just  as  the  solu- 
tion of  a  mathematical  problem  is  an  exercise  in  intellec- 
tual analysis. 

The  study  of  the  work  of  a  great  artist,  whether  poet, 
dramatist,  or  musician,  will  not  only  provide  opportunities 
for  the  practice  of  appreciation  and  the  acquiring  of  skill  in 
intuition,  which  can  be  carried  over  and  used  afterwards  in 
the  apprehension  of  life  ;  but  it  may  also  be  the  direct 
means  of  bringing  the  pupil  face  to  face  with  reality  itself. 
"Art,"  says  Bergson,  "whether  it  be  painting  or  sculpture, 
poetry  or  music,  has  no  other  object  than  to  brush  aside  the 
utilitarian  symbols,  the  conventional  and  socially  accepted 
generalities,  in  short,  everything  that  veils  reality  from  us, 
in  order  to  bring  us  face  to  face  with  reality  itself."^ 

1  Cambridge  Essays  on  Education  (Edited  by  A.  C.  Benson), 

P-45- 

8  Laughter  (^i<)il)y^.  157. 

123 


t  I 


: 


•M    I 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

Art  has  no  ulterior  motive.  It  is 

the  love  of  loving,  rage 
Of  knowing,  seeing,  feeling  the  absolute  truth  of  things 
For  truth's  sake,  whole  and  sole,  not  any  good,  truth  brings 
The  knower.^ 

The  artist's  vision   is  disinterested:    it  is  direct  and 
intuitive — 

God  has  a  few  of  us  whom  he  whispers  in  the  ear ; 

The  rest  may  reason  and  welcome  :  *tis  we  musicians  know.* 

And  the  artist's  success  in  lifting  the  veil  from  the  face  of 
reality  compels  the  student's  imitation.  It  inspires  him  to 
efforts  to  grasp  by  intuition  what  the  artist  himself  has 
grasped,  and  to  see  something  of  what  he  has  seen.  Indeed, 
its  compelling  power  in  this  direction  is  a  measure  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  artistic  work.  In  cases  where  the  artist 
has  himself  penetrated  into  the  inner  life  of  things,  it  will 
be  found  that  many  will  be  able  to  follow,  where  only  one 
could  have  led.  Consequently,  through  the  appreciation 
of  the  work  of  a  great  artist,  children  will  not  only  be 
trained  in  the  use  of  the  method  of  intuition,  but  the  com- 
pelling power  of  the  artist's  example  will  enable  them  to 
catch  the  strains  of  the  immortal  music  and  to  see  into  the 
life  of  things.  It  will  enable  them  to  detach  themselves 
momentarily  from  the  mere  struggle  to  live,  which  usually 
forces  them  to  dwell  on  the  useful  aspects  of  things  :  and 
thus  the  direct  apprehension  of  things  as  they  are,  will  be- 
come possible. 

What  is  true  of  great  artists  is  true  also  of  the  great 
mystics  who  have  arisen  from  time  to  time,  and  who  ap- 
pear to  have  possessed  in  exceptional  degree  the  power  of 
intuition.  The  record  of  the  spiritual  experiences  of  men 
who  **  by  ever-renewed  effort  have  vanquished  the  cry- 

^  Browning  :  Fifine  at  the  Fair.     '  Browning  :  Aht  Vogler. 

124 


INTUITION 

stallizing  tendencies  of  thought  and  attained  an  inimediate, 
if  imperfect,  communion  with  reality  "  can  inspire  others 
to  greater  efforts  to  apprehend.  The  study  of  the  mystical 
literature  of  the  New  Testament,  and  particularly  of  the 
records  of  the  life  of  Christ,  should  therefore  occupy  an 
important  place  in  the  education  of  boys  and  girls,  especi- 
ally during  the  period  of  youth  when  they  are  powerfully 
impelled  from  within  to  seek  a  philosophy  of  life.  Indeed, 
the  provision  of  opportunities  for  this  study  is  second  in 
importance  only  to  the  provision  of  opportunities  for  the 
direct  and  continuous  apprehension  of  life  itself. 

Of  course,  the  views  of  poets  and  mystics  should  no 
more  be  imposed  ready-made  on  the  mind  of  a  child  than 
the  views  of  philosophers  and  theologians.  It  is  their 
example  which  is  supremely  important,  since  it  may  fur- 
nish him  with  an  inspiration  and  a  method  of  seeking  truth. 
But  his  philosophy  must  be  his  own,  arrived  at  by  his  own 
efforts  and  by  the  synthesizing  of  his  own  experiences. 
On  this  account  adequate  opportunities  should  be  provided 
for  the  practice  of  silence.  Indeed,  not  only  intuitive,  but 
creative,  methods  of  teaching  also,  usually  foil  where  these 
do  not  exist.  If  an  individual  in  a  school  is  always  hurried 
from  task  to  task,  if  he  is  continually  harassed  with  definite 
duties  that  have  to  be  performed  to  time,  if  he  never  has 
any  opportunity  for  quiet,  he  will  never  succeed  in  finding 
any  kind  of  unity  in  his  experience.  Not,  of  course,  that 
silence  rules  need  to  be  artificially  imposed  on  all  the 
pupils  in  a  school  or  class.  The  living  of  a  life  involves 
constant  intercourse  and  co-operation  with  others,  and  to 
enforce  silence  upon  individuals  when  the  impulse  within 
is  towards  co-operation  is  worse  than  useless.  But  there 
are  occasions  when  an  individual's  greatest  need  is  to  re- 
tire from  the  madding  crowd  and  in  silence  to  re-synthesize 
his  experience.  There  are  times  when  speech  and  explana- 
tion cease  to  be  illuminating,  and  serve  rather  to  dull  and 

125 


1 


BERGSON  AND  EDUCATION 

distort,  perhaps  even  to  destroy,  the  embryo  vision  of 
reality.  This  is  the  time  for  silence,  that  silence  which  is  a 
prelude  to  a  new  intuition  of  life. 

In  every  school  there  should  therefore  be  some  silence 
room,  or  rooms,  to  which  the  children  can  have  access  for 
purposes  of  meditation.  This  is  especially  necessary  in 
schools  where  the  pupils  govern  themselves  and  are  sup- 
posed to  be  free  to  choose  their  own  occupations.  They 
will  never  be  really  free,  nor  will  they  develop  fully,  if  they 
are  denied  opportunities  for  the  practice  of  silence.  They 
need  these  just  as  much  as  they  need  opportunities  for 
creative  work  and  for  social  co-operation.  Yet  even  edu- 
cational reformers  sometimes  fail  to  realize  that  the  growth 
of  an  individual  can  be  as  easily  hindered  through  the  re- 
pression of  impulses  towards  the  intuition  of  life,  as  through 
the  thwarting  of  impulses  towards  self-expression  and 
human  fellowship.  But  the  truth  is  that  the  higher  stages 
in  the  development  of  an  individual  can  never  be  reached 
until,  by  the  practice  of  intuition,  he  learns  to  enter  into 
harmonious  relationships  with  reality  itself  It  is  in  this 
way,  and  in  this  way  alone,  that  the  superficially  conflict- 
ing impulses  within  him  gradually  fell  into  some  sort  of 
harmony,  so  that  eventually  his  soul  is  at  one  with  itself, 
and  he  comes  to  possess  that  tranquillity  and  peace  of  mind 
which  is  a  sign  that  he  has  at  last  attained  to  some  measure 
of  real  freedom.  And  so  intimately  interwoven  are  the 
creative,  social,  and  intuitive  sides  of  his  nature — in  the 
depths  they  are  not  really  three  but  one — that  the  practice 
of  silence  and  the  development  of  intuition  not  only  en- 
able him  to  orientate  himself  more  perfectly  to  living 
creative  evolution,  but  the  visions  of  life  which  he  thus 
gains  make  possible  a  higher  order  of  creative  work  and  a 
deeper  enjoyment  of  human  fellowship.  By  seeing  him- 
self in  relation  to  that  which  is  greater  than  himself,  by 
union  with  the  other  spiritual  forces  in  the  universe,  by 

126 


INTUITION 

intercourse  with  the  Supreme  Person  in  whom  all  living 
beings  are  gathered,  there  is  a  reinforcement  of  the  life 
urge  within  and  a  consequent  enrichment  of  his  whole 
personality.  There  results  not  a  loss  of  individuality,  but 
the  lifting  of  the  whole  man  to  new  levels  of  existence 
which  make  for  greater  individuality;  not  a  separation 
from  his  fellows,  but  a  deeper  understanding  of  their  real 
nature  and  destiny  ;  not  the  passivity  of  death,  but  the 
enhanced  creativeness  of  more  abundant  life. 


IN 


INDEX 


i 


DALCROZE,  97,   1 10 
Dalton  plan  of  Education, 

I02 

Darwin,  35 
Discipline,  73,  75 


ANIMAL  life,  differentiation 
from  vegetable,  37-38 
Animal  life,  lines  of  evolution 
of,  38-39 

Arthropods,  38-40,  42  

Arts,  place  in  curriculum  of,     Drever,  70 

91,  122-124  Driesch,  34 

methods  of  teaching,  96-     Duration,  2 1-2 5 

97,103-104,109-110 

E'  LAN  vital,  34-35,  69-71 
Elementary  Schools,  62 
l->Bible,  85,  93,  121,  125         Eurh7thmics,97,io9-i  10,122 
Biology,  place  in  curriculum      Evolution,  creative,  33-41 

°^»  9 1  Examinations,  6 1 

methods  of  teaching,  116- 

"7  T7ABRE,  39 

Body,  relation  of  mind  and,      F  Freedom,  levels  of,  78-81 


31-32 
Boy  Scouts,  63 
Brovjrning,  13,  61,  71,  90,  124 


individual,  78 

social,  79 

real,  80 
Free  will,  30,  50^ 
Freud,  60,  71 
Fry,  Miss  I.,  64 


CAMPACNAC,  84 
Carlyle,  22 
Carroll,  25 
Change,  apprehension  of,  14-     ^ames,  109 

Cizek,  103-104 

Coleridge,  36 

Comte,  49-50 

Consciousness,  26—32  ..^w„^«     ^ 

Continuation  Schools,  82,  88-  tt  Handwork,  63,  100 

90»  91  Herbart,  60 

Cook,  aidweU,  96  Heuristic  method,  95-96 

Co-operation    in    Education,  History,  place  in  curriculum 

106-112  of,  91 

Creation  m  Education,  94-105  methods  of  teaching,  117- 

Creative  Evolution,  33-41  121 

Creative  Evolution,  3,  22,  36  Huxley,  50 

129  I 


VJ  Government,  school,  69- 
81 

Group,  work  of,  1 07-1 12 
TJAECKEL,  50 


INDEX 


IMMORTALITT,  32,  50 
Individual,  development  of, 
69-81 
Instinct,  38-39 

of  man,  70-71 
Intellectualism,  revolt  against, 

59-68 
Intelligence,   13-14,  21,   54, 

59»  90  _ 

relation  of  intuition  to, 

40-41 

Introduction    to    Metaphysics, 

^»,  II,  29,  33 

Intuition,  9-20,  54-56,  122- 

127 

relation  of  intelligence  to, 

40-41 

JACKS,  34 
James,  i,  4 
Jung,  60,  71 

KANT,  9 
Keatinge,  119 
Kimmins,  73 

LANE,  76 
Laughter,  14,  28,  45,  98, 
123 
Laughter,  meaning  of,  45-46 

Life,  33 

Life  Subjects,  91,  92-93 

methods   of  teach- 
ing, 1 1 3-1 27 
Life  and  Consciousness,  30,  37, 

43»  55.  105 
Literature,  91,  123-125 


MAcMuNN,  96 
Man,  place  in  nature  of, 
42-48 
Matter  and  Memory,  3,  32 
McDougall,  60,  70 
Mechanization,  danger  of,  45- 

48 

in  education,  iio-m 
Methods  in  teaching,  creative, 
94-105 
co-operative,    106- 

112 
heuristic,  95-96 
intuitive,  11 3-1 27 
new,  94-127 
synthetic,  87 
Mind,  relation  of  body  and, 

31-32 
Mind  Energy,  28,  29,  100 
Molluscs,  38 
Montessori,  72-74,  75,  77> 

85,115 
Motion,  lo-ii,  14-19 
Music,  109 
Mystics,  12,  124-125 

NATURE  study,  114 
New  Ideals  in  Education, 
Reports,  64,  73,  96,  97 
Nunn,  71 

O'Neill,  74,  77 
Outwood    and    Kcarsley 
Elementary  School,  74-76 

PECKHAM,  39 
Philosophy,  a  new  method 
in,  9-20,  54-56 


130 


IND 

Philosophy,  growth  of  an  in- 
dividual's, 82 
teaching  of,  91,  92,  1 1 3- 
127 
Physical  training,  90 
Plato,  12 
Poetry,  91,  123 
Poets,  recognition  of  intuition 

by,  1 2-1 3 

Psycho-analysts,  60,  71 

RELIGION,  teaching  of,  83- 
93»  "3-127 
Richmond,  87 
Rousseau,  78 

SCIENCE,  49-56 
methods  of  teaching, 

95-96,  109 
Scouting,  63 

Secondary  Schools,  66,  67,  91 
Self-education,  74-81 
Shand,  60 
Shaw,  62 
Silence,  practice  of,  75,  125- 

127 
Simpson,  76 
Social  freedom,  79,  1 06-1 12 


EX 

States  of  consciousness,  26-29 
Synthetic  method  of  teaching, 

87 

TENNYSON,  115 
Time,  21-25 
Time  and  Free  mil,  2,  30 
Time-tables,  rigidity  of  school, 
67,  lOO-IOI 

Trotter,  97 

UNIVERSITIES,  social  life  of, 
66 
tutorial  system  in,  loi- 
102 


V 


EGETABLE  life,  37"38 
Vertebrates,  38-42 


WAR,    the    meaning    of, 
47-48 
Wasp,  solitary,  39-40 
Wells,  23-24,92,  118 
Wordsworth,  12,  41,  52 

ZENO,  paradoxes  of  motion 
of,  14-19 


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N^  THE  CHILD  VISION.    Being  a  study  in  Menul  Development  and  Exorea- 

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